Pillar of Salt
by coeur-d'astronaute
Summary: A before and after of missions for Felicity and Sara as they try to figure out how to have a relationship.
1. Chapter 1

_Though I've walked down a crooked path_  
_That don't mean it wasn't cursed._  
_My feeble heart was filled with wrath_  
_My poison mind with thoughts perverse._

"This was brave and this was stupid," Sara sighed as she lace the needle once more through the skin. Felicity nodded and closed her eyes tightly against the pain. It only made it worse though. She wouldn't complain or moan. She allowed herself one small hiss and ground her teeth together to avoid another because she was not going to appear any more weak than she already felt. The boys had already excused themselves while Sara worked on Felicity's shoulder, so now felt like a proper time for a scolding.

"If I would have known that you were-" Sara continued, tearing a piece of tape with her teeth to hold the bandage on the shoulder. "I would have never let you."

"Let me?" Felicity turned her head slightly, emboldened by the adrenaline, painkillers, and overall fearless streak that suddenly made an appearance tonight.

"Yes, let you," Sara stared her down gently. It was almost beyond her comprehension why the small, untrained technojock would even risk something like she had with Tockman. "And I doubt you could have made it through me, let alone Oliver and Digg."

"I don't need permission," Felicity scowled like a petulant child. "I had to-"

"No, you don't get it," Sara stepped in front of the wounded girl as she tried to hop off of the table. She put her hand on Felicity's good shoulder to keep her seated. "You could have been killed." Felicity looked away, blinking angrily. "This isn't pretend. You're not Nancy Drew. You're not Superman. You are the computer. You are the brains."

"You would have gotten shot," Felicity reminded her, pulling her shirt over her shoulder too quickly and feeling a twang of pain.

"I've been shot before. You haven't," Sara reminded her.

"I can take it," Felicity insisted. Sara knew she was losing this fight because she had no right to critique someone for getting shot when that was her job. She took a deep breath and tried to focus.

"You can't do that again," Sara decided. She stared at Felicity and tucked the inside of her upper lip between her teeth, a subtle illustration of her innate anxiety. Her voice had been firm and authoritative, though caring in its insisting. It left no room for argument. Felicity shut her mouth as she started to open it.

"I've killed people. Lots of people," she confessed. "I've gotten scars from many of them. I have my history written on my body, and the past six years was one hell of a story. Dante couldn't have imagined it. You can't even imagine it. You don't need the same story."

"I was just..." Felicity tried. "I had to try."

"I've been filled with hate that burned my insides to ash," Sara continued. "It's only starting to grow back. There are only finally little sprouts of green inside of me again." Gently, Sara ran her fingertips along Felicity's cheek. Her thumb ran along the bone. Her fingers grabbed at the hair behind her ear. Felicity leaned into her palm with a dopey, drug-eased smile. Her eyes were bigger than Sara ever remembered seeing them. "And I think I'd be burned alive beyond repair from the inside if anything happened to you."

For a long moment Felicity just sat there, allowing Sara to hold her head for her, enjoying the feeling of her warm palm. The blue eyes attached to the hand were full of something that felt like fear. Though her words had been said as statements, bossy and assertive, Felicity felt there was a question there.

"Okay," she nodded slightly, lifting her own head slightly. She swallowed the cotton that somehow formed in her mouth, scraping roughly at the roof of her mouth with her tongue. "I won't be a vigilante vigilante." Sara smiled at the description.

"That's all I wanted to hear," Sara promised. She finally removed her hand and allowed Felicity to button up her shirt and cleaned up the last bit of medical supplies. There was only the quiet beeping of machines and a low rumble in Felicity's chest when she stood and moved her shoulder.

The night had been rough for everyone involved, though it felt fulfilling for Felicity as she attempted to stand straight and fight the opiates provided to numb the pain. She tried to shove her phone in her bag and grabbed her laptop. She had acted heroically in the face of danger, and that was an important thing for her to know about herself. Even in the haze she realized that something had happened between her and Sara. She couldn't put her finger on it, but it was much more than the occasional flirting she found herself in lately in the lair. She wouldn't even allow herself to call it flirting because it was more of an awkward rambling on her part whenever Sara made a comment to her. And mostly it was her oogling her when she grew sweaty and worked out and hit things with her fists and wore those pants. Felicity let her mind wonder before she realized a voice was getting her attention.

"Hey, Felicity, are you there?" Sara snapped her fingers in front of Felicity's face to get her attention. "You kind of froze, are you alright?" Felicity swirled around to face her completely and nodded quickly, swallowing roughly. "I asked if you'd like me to take you home. I don't think it's safe you drive."

"Yeah, definitely, makes sense, yeah," Felicity garbled her words and kept nodding.

The ride to Felicity's house was slow in her head as the pain killers wore off slightly and she lost the high for the moment. Each jostle and bump in the road on the way to her apartment was like getting punched in her wound. She focused on counting the passing streetlights. Sara didn't make an attempt at conversation, but kept focused on the road, oddly drained and thus relieved at her confession to Felicity.

"I usually park-" Felicity motioned towards her street spot where Sara was already guiding the car.

"I know, I know," Sara muttered. Felicity gave her a look again. "You don't think we don't occasionally make a point to make sure you're safe?" Felicity didn't know how to feel about the realization that she'd been under surveillance. Sara knew enough to not push her luck and followed when Felicity opened her door and got out.

Like a paper-smacked puppy, Sara followed Felicity up the three flights to her apartment, lagging behind but keeping up at a respectable distance. She didn't feel right not taking her up and leaving her at the door. Someone takes a bullet and that's important and she deserved some sort of protection.

"Thanks for getting me home," Felicity said at her door. Wearily she leaned against the jamb until even her head was held up by the wall. Sara stood strong and firm there across from her. "I suppose we're even then, you know, for the whole taking a bullet for you thing."

"How about you hold that over me for a while?" Sara smiled generously. Felicity closed her eyes and nodded. "Two weeks, minimum."

"How are you getting home?" Felicity realized, standing a bit more upright. "It's so late."

"I think I can take care of myself," Sara shoved her hands in her pockets. She hadn't thought about it too much. The streets at night didn't scare her.

"Come on," Felicity opened her door and flicked on a light. "You can stay if you want. It's not much, but it's home."

Cautiously, Sara followed her into the studio. She'd already known it wasn't very big. That much was evident from the view on the fire escape which Sara would never admit to peeking through to make sure things were alright inside a few times in the past. She wasn't going to allow herself to stay, and she hadn't meant to follow, but the novelty of coming in through the front door was kind of too unique to pass up at the time.

Felicity dropped her bag on her desk chair and plugged in her laptop on her desk that was already filled completely with a torn apart computer. When she turned around she found Sara analyzing pictures of her family on the wall. She allowed herself just a moment to watch the hero gazing intently. Sometimes, especially in moments like this, moments that were so human, it was hard for Felicity to equate the small blonde with the powerhouse that broke necks and fought armed guards and gangs almost nightly. The masked vigilante that spent six years lost to the world and herself was looking at her dorky family photos. It made Felicity smile slightly. There were other human moments too that made Felicity think she could see either the last remnants of the lost girl or the rebuilt characteristics of a warrior. The way she craved burgers, the way she liked to talk about the Rockets. It was all still there.

"I should head home," Sara finally realized, stepping away from the pictures. They had captured her though, forcing her to stay a few minutes longer than initially anticipated. She liked the one of a young Felicity with glasses too big for her face and a big fish in her hands and her father's hand on her shoulder. And the one of her in a cap and gown at graduation with her parents. And the one of her with a little boy that looked like her when she was a kid, and they both had their hands up on a roller coaster. They hit Sara right in the gut.

"I meant it when I said you could say," Felicity reminded her. "It's late, and I would feel bad for making you come the whole way out here with no way to get back." She leaned against the edge of her desk, tired from the day. Her fingers gripped at the wood to keep her standing.

"I'll manage," Sara smiled gently. "Don't worry about me."

"I do though," Felicity sighed. She watched Sara's confused face realize what she meant. "I worry every time you put on that mask," Felicity shrugged.

They stood across from each other, occasionally making eye contact, mostly avoiding it. It was intimate. It was a heavy, wide moment before them. The room separated them like a canyon, yet in Felicity's small studio, Sara felt so close to her, as if she was intruding or sneaking into a place she wasn't supposed to go. Neither wanted to move or acknowledge that Sara should head home. Neither knew how. She'd somehow gotten herself that far, and now Sara wasn't sure what to do. They just stood, rooted. Just a few steps away from each other they could have been miles apart and felt closer.

"You must say that to all of the vigilante girls who bring you home after you get shot," Sara tried to joke. Felicity smiled and nodded, turning her head to look at the streetlight streaming in through her window.

"Do you really stop by my neighborhood?" Felicity asked, suddenly. Sara nodded. "That makes me feel a bit special." She blushed and Sara enjoyed it. It crept along her neck and up to her ears and cheek until her head succumbed to the weight of it and ducked to look at the ground and hide it.

It was a moment that made her soul feel a little more at rest. Sara could almost feel the growth inside of her, how different it was from burning and hatred. It made her brave in a new kind of way. Felicity only realized how easily the canyon of her living room had been crossed when Sara was close to her. She felt her near before she looked up and met her eyes. She watched Sara take a deep breath and before she could register why, Sara's lips were on her own.

Felicity's lips were still and shocked, but Sara kissed her still. She took a small step forward so her hips were on Felicity's hips and she put her hand on her neck and she kissed her, slow and fierce and fueled by this growing in her chest. There'd been weeks of awkward flirting between the two. There'd been so many reasons not to do it. But all of that culminated in this moment.

Slowly, Felicity was able to register what was happening. Without her consciousness, her hands grabbed at Sara's shirt, pulling at the hem, keeping her close as best she could. Excruciatingly slow, Sara kissed the wounded IT girl. Their lips moved together. Their hands gripped at each other blindly. Gradually, Felicity fought back, her tongue surprising Sara. It just spurred Sara onwards though, her hip pinning Felicity's roughly. She felt her hands pulling her shirt closer. Sara dug her hands into Felicity's hair just the same.

"Wow," Felicity sighed as they both pulled away slightly. Slowly the rest of their bodies registered and Sarah's hand loosened and slid to Felicity's shoulder and Felicity's hands loosened their grip on Sara's shirt, no longer bunching and pulling it, but staying there, holding tightly.

"Yeah," Sara leaned her forehead against Felicity's and smiled, closing her eyes to remember this moment. The worst part of first kisses was that they never happened again, and she was very much afraid of this not being a repeat performance. "Wow."

They stood there, touching each other, pressed close, forehead to forehead. Just as they felt stuck apart, fearing the movement of time that would take them out of this moment, so to now did they feel the impending force of life. But resist it they tried, barely moving, gripping still.

"I should go," Sara said again, finally. She stood up a bit, no longer pressing the smaller girl into the edge of the desk. Felicity didn't let up her grip on the shirt.

"Stay," she urged the hero. Sara didn't have a chance against those eyes, and she knew it, though she would never want to admit it. She swallowed and stared back at the requesting party.

Assured of her victory, Felicity let go of the shirt and walked towards the bed. Sara remained for a second, rooted there, attempting to fight her urge to stay. Just until Felicity falls asleep, she promised herself. That seemed reasonable. Until she looked over at the bed and caught the milky white skin of Felicity's back as she pulled on a new shirt to sleep in. Turning quickly, Sara locked the door and hit the light, making her way gracefully through the apartment in the dark.

"Would you like... a shirt or... clothes... I don't... over there..." Felicity tried as she turned and saw Sara strip out of her pants.

"I should be okay," Sara said, slipping under the covers quickly.

The apartment grew dark and quiet as they settled into their sides of the bed. Felicity was forced to face the middle because of her shoulder. In the dark she convinced herself that she saw Sara's blue eyes. Still distant and confused, the two felt the chasm between them built of fear and silence. It didn't sit well with Felicity.

"You kissed me," she observed in the quiet with her voice low.

"Yeah," Sara nodded, adjusting slightly.

"I liked it," Felicity continued. Sara smiled to herself in the dark. "I mean, it was good for me. And I hope it was good for you. Because I did like it. And it was unexpected, but a good kind, and I hadn't thought about it. But that's a lie because I had thought about it and it didn't make sense, and then it happened, and I didn't want to say anything but if I didn't say anything then maybe it would disappear and be an awkward, untalked about thing between us and I don't know if I could do that, I'd probably explode." All of the words came out in a rush until Sara chuckled a bit to make Felicity's words fall off at the end.

"Good," she decided. "Maybe I'll do it again sometime."

"Okay," Felicity smiled this time. Sara could hear it in her voice, a small alteration of hope. Sara wanted to do it again.

"Goodnight," Sara whispered. She shifted her head closer slightly. They still weren't touching. She didn't want to, not like this.

"Goodnight," Felicity whispered back. She shifted slightly.

In the dark, Sara let her eyes adjust and see more and more details. She listened to Felicity's breathing grow even and strong. It was over an hour that Sara let herself lay there, tired and worn, content and eager. She dug her nose into the pillow and inhaled Felicity. She tried to pinpoint all of the smells, cataloguing them in her head to recall whenever she needed them. She counted Felicity's breathing, keeping the beat in her head, trying to match it as best she could.

While she laid there, Sara tried to think about what she'd done. It felt momentous. It felt like a relief. She'd wanted to kiss her a lot sooner, but for some reason it felt important, like something she'd do and be different afterwards. She was right about that, though she couldn't pinpoint why, exactly. She liked Felicity's awkwardness. It was endearing. She loved her brain and her mind and her personality. She liked her chin and her eyes and her nose and her hair. She loved her innate confidence and constant unsureness. The paradox of Felicity was exciting and wondrous to Sara. And all of that, the ease of it all, it absolutely terrified her.

Without a noise, Sara slipped out from the blankets and put on her pants and boots. She stood at the foot of the bed and watched Felicity move for a moment, pulling the sheets up over her shoulder a bit tighter. Sara figured that she would just hurt the innocent and kind girl. She didn't want to cause her any pain. That was the thing that kept her restrained as long as she had been. She feared it and it beat her. But there was no fighting it.

In this, Sara recognized a fight or flight moment. To leave would hurt Felicity in ways she couldn't understand. Sara realized she shouldn't have kissed her, because it was all so complicated, and yet this, this moment, these past few hours weren't difficult. They were insanely easy. To stay might mean hurting her in the future. To stay would be difficult. But to leave was proving impossible.

"For fuck's sake," Sara groaned quietly and shook her head, running her hands through her hair.

Quietly she took off her boots and pants again before slipping back into the bed without alerting Felicity. As if programed, she found the same spot she'd just vacated. Her decision made, Sara allowed herself to wiggle a bit closer, though still not touching, and to close her eyes and sleep soundly.


	2. Chapter 2

_I don't know what we've done,  
__but the fire is coming  
__and I think we should run. _

The noise from the club above did nothing to distract Felicity from her work. Busy and focused, her eyes scanned across pages and pages of somewhat illegally obtained documents and images. At times, she loved the solitude of the basement headquarters because it was so quiet and private. It felt like the most impregnable place on the planet, even though above her head a herd of people filled the club. Something about being so close to an unassuming mass of people but unknown to them felt like the most alone she could ever hope to be. At times, that was needed.

"Somehow I knew I'd find you down here," a voice startled Felicity as she rubbed her tired, computer-logged eyes. "You know it is okay to take a night off."

"I have a real job, on top of my side job," Felicity turned in her chair with a smile to find Sara leaning cockily against the table. "Not all of us are superheroes who make their own hours."

"I have a real job," she insisted. "It just so happens to be here." Felicity watched her blue eyes look at the ceiling and then fall back to her.

It'd been a week since they woken up together. Felicity remembered hair in her face that wasn't hers, though wasn't unpleasant. She remembered taking a huge breath, stretching a bit, and pulling at another body, her hand on skin beneath a shirt. Sara slept through it so that Felicity was able to scoot a little bit away before she woke. Yet she had allowed herself a moment to look at the sleeping girl. To see Sara sleeping belied what she was capable of, and for a moment Felicity was convinced that she was just a scared and beaten puppy, sleeping in a fetal-like position. She tried not to think of how wonderful it had been to feel her body pressed against Sara's. Felicity wasn't sure how it happened, exactly, how she gravitated in the night towards the other body in her bed, but she was grateful she wasn't discovered.

But inevitably, Sara woke up and found Felicity at her desk with a cup of coffee, tiny screwdriver in hand, working on the guts of a dissected computer. She gave herself a moment to watch her work before getting out of bed because it had been such a refreshing sleep, she wasn't sure she wanted it to end, and debated staying and trying to continue it a bit longer. Even from her position on the bed though, she could see Felicity's shoulders hunched and working hard. Sara kept this moment for herself, remembering and storing the feeling of the sheets, the smell of the coffee and open window and bed tinted with Felicity, the girl who had managed to sneak out of bed without her noticing.

"Speaking of," Felicity tried, "Shouldn't you be at your job and not judging me for my hobbies or lack thereof?"

"There are labor laws, you know," Sara shrugged, picking up the bag of burgers and fries she'd grabbed before descending to the quiet of the lair. "I thought you'd like dinner."

The week had passed easily between them. Felicity tried not to think about how just a few days ago, Sara kissed her, or that she kissed back a bit. Instead she busied herself in her work, both actual and extracurricular. There had been the day that she watched Sara training and doing pull ups and sweaty. Felicity didn't get any work done that day. They never spoke about it again after Sara made up an excuse to leave that morning. Though that didn't matter. Instead they grew closer in their subtleties.

"Won't Thea be mad if you're not back?" Felicity asked quietly as she dipped a fry.

"She'll live," Sara decided through a big bite of her burger.

"Maybe I should try that with my boss..." Felicity earned a laugh.

"Ollie wouldn't know what to do if you weren't literally two steps behind him, thinking four steps ahead," Sara promised.

"I don't know about that," she shook her head.

"Working for the Queens is perilous," Sara shrugged between bites. "We have to stick together."

"This is like your sixth shift," Felicity laughed.

"I never had much of a work ethic," she shrugged, eating another fry.

"I can't believe it. You do like nine thousand pull ups and have toned yourself- what I mean is it shows that you- or what I mean is that really you've put in a lot of work to be as capable as you are. Fuck." Sara grinned into her drink at the word vomit.

"It's definitely been a steep learning curve when it comes to ethic and... pull-ups."

"I don't know who you were before, but who you are now isn't so bad," Felicity offered. "That must mean that before you had all of these qualities like being noble and strong and kind and determined. Now they just kind of got honed."

"You're too optimistic," Sara tried to dismiss her observations, but Felicity didn't budge. "I would have rather been like you, I guess. Full of good, already there, not needing a catalyst. That's rare."

"Sometimes I steal my neighbors newspaper," Felicity said after chewing thoughtfully. "And I eat grapes when I go grocery shopping and don't pay for them. Once I broke my mom's windshield and blamed it on a bird, and still haven't confessed."

"I take it back," Sara laughed, making Felicity feel less than impressive as she originally meant. "You're a hardened, evil soul."

"I sneak candy into movie theaters."

"You're cute to try so hard."

Sometimes Sara found herself finding reasons to stay late at work to sneak down and talk to Felicity. She spent the past week showing off, full of bravado, trying to catch her eye. Occasionally she flirted with her, though in lesser degrees than normal. It was unspoken that things had changed between the two, no matter how much they refused to acknowledge it. Every night, though, Sara ended up on Felicity's fire escape for just a moment, to assure herself that the other girl was safe. It was an unconscious decision. Her feet guided her that way before she could sleep. The unspoken thing, the thing they never talked about, that made her come to see the dark window every night.

"Thank you for dinner," Felicity smiled at the blonde across from her as she chewed on her straw. "I didn't realize how hungry I was."

"What can I say," Sara leaned back in her chair, throwing the napkin onto the table. "I aim to please."

Felicity blushed slightly. She'd never been kissed so purposefully, and the past week had been torture dancing around it in her head. She replayed it in her head on a never-ending loop. She felt it whenever she went home and laid in bed in the dark and stared at her window until she fell asleep, wondering if a certain masked blonde happened to stop by or was in danger. The kiss camped in the back of her mind and set up a fort there, not to be evicted at any cost.

Now, they found themselves in another stand-off. The quiet that settled on the table reminded Sara that she had to return to work and had already gone well beyond what a reasonable break would be considered. The paralyzing feeling in her bones made Felicity realize that they were caught in a tense pull, stuck by words that wouldn't let themselves be spoken.

"Why are you so nice to me?" Felicity asked, gripping her drink a bit tighter and avoiding Sara's eyes. "I mean... you kissed me and you stitched me and you bring me food and you ask me questions and you sometimes show me how to punch... Not many people have been that nice to me." Sara found herself slightly surprised at the question and the sudden breaking of the exact silence upon the matter of the kiss.

"You're easy to be nice to," she decided that was a safe answer. Felicity nodded. "And I like you." That came out without a thought. Sara swallowed roughly. "I mean, I really do. You're smart and funny and you don't look at me like I'm a horrible person. I don't feel like a terrible person, or like I have to perform who I once was. You take me as I am, flaws and all."

"You're not... I mean, I don't think... You couldn't be..." Felicity tried to speak, but failed after that confession. She hadn't been the coolest kid in school. She hadn't been on anyone's radar. She hadn't had a date until college. It wasn't that she cared though. Felicity worked hard to get to where she was, and she chose her path. This attention from Sara was simply foreign because she noticed it.

"My sister gives me looks and asks me to talk to her," Sara sighed, looking away this time. Felicity had never seen her anxious. "My dad, he looks at me sometimes like I'm a stranger. Ollie just... What I mean is that... I don't know, honestly." There was a hopelessness in her sigh. "You're not full of violence and hate and anger. It's nice to be around that."

"That's quite a compliment," Felicity smiled and blushed.

Once again they found themselves on the edge of some great precipice, obscured by an invisible wall that kept them apart. It wasn't restraint. It was something bigger than that. It was relaxed, as if an understanding was there, that time would move them along no matter what they chose, and for now they neglected to make a move. There was nothing separating them except themselves and that fact made them blush and smile and coyly try to dismiss it.

"I like yo-" Felicity began, interrupted by Sara speaking at the same time.

"I should head back to w-" Sara was cut off by a beeping of the computer behind Felicity.

Felicity turned in her chair and pulled up the event that triggered the alarm. While she worked she let out a breath, put at ease by being saved by the bell.

"There's a robbery in progress at First City Bank," Felicity read from the screen, pulling up security footage of masked me blowing through a door.

"Call Oliver, tell him to meet me there," Sara said, already moving towards her store of supplies.

"They're armed," Felicity called as Sara started to run. "Please be safe!"

Like a flash, Sara ran back towards the desk, mask already on her face, apron already tossed aside. She leaned down and kissed Felicity's cheek.

"I'm always safe," she grinned and was gone a second later. Felicity was left startled and grinning and rubbing her cheek.

* * *

The robbery had been done for a few hours already, but after no sign or word from the two vigilantes, Felicity reluctantly let herself be convinced my Digg to head home. Her job was done once she un-hacked her way out of the bank server and cameras, but she had trouble leaving. She did have work in the morning, and keeping up with everyone was hard enough on a full night of sleep, so she gave up on trying to finish her conversation with Sara.

So Felicity went home as she always did. There were only so many things that she could contribute, and right now, they were off on their own as the two crime fighters were known to do. Felicity went through her routine before crawling into bed with her laptop to finally answer her father's emails. Though she was tired, her brain wouldn't turn off so easily as she might have hoped. The echoes of the words of the mission of the night haunted her, and watching it happen on security cameras was almost worse. Sara had gotten everyone, but she took her licks before Oliver arrived. Once it was over, they disappeared into the night, turning off their connections, angry at each other.

The side job weighed heavily on Felicity at times, and tonight had been confusing enough without the full brunt of it. But none of it appeared in her email. She told her dad that she was promoted and she'd started volunteering for a non-profit. That part was almost true in the vaguest sense of the words. She left out the Black Canary and her lips. She left out how tired she was and how scared she'd become and how much she was at risk and the fact that she'd been shot. Instead she filled the email with glowing stories she'd overheard at the office and passed them off as her own. The story about the new restaurant down the block from the copy boy. The one about the bus from the girl that delivered mail. She peppered her story with affection and allowed herself to show in those tiny moments.

"Fuck!" she yelped, jumping to the other side of the bed when a tap came at her window. Her heart beat wildly as she tried to calm it. Sara waved awkwardly from the fire escape. "I have a front door," Felicity opened the window and scolded her as the vigilante crawled inside easily.

"Didn't want to chance it with the costume," Sara motioned to the clothes.

After closing the window, Felicity was able to fully appreciate the extent of the damage Sara had encountered. Sarah just stood there dumbly and awkwardly, aware now that she shouldn't have come here.

"Go find some clothes," Felicity sighed, looking at her sadly. "I'll get the first aid kit." Without a word, Sara moved to find clothes and change. She wanted to be taken care of instead of being the one taking care. It was selfish, but she needed it badly. So she allowed herself to be bossed, grateful that Felicity was kinder than she knew.

Felicity busied herself with running warm water and finding the old kit her mother made her buy for her own apartment. This was the wall, she realized. This was the canyon between them. When they stood or sat divided, silent and appraising the other, it was to see if they were made of tough enough stuff for this moment. At least that was what it was for Felicity. She assumed the same for the other girl, though Sara's mind was a bit hard to crack. This moment was as important as the kiss.

"You should have let Digg or Oliver look at you," Felicity scolded Sara in the kitchen chair. Appraisingly she tilted her shin from side to side and up and down to see the scrapes and bruises already forming.

"Ollie's a jackass," Sara gritted her teeth as the warm rag made contact with the dried blood on her neck. Felicity smiled and shook her head as her hands gingerly worked at the cuts.

"You don't think that," Felicity scolded her again.

Sara just closed her eyes and nodded. He didn't have a right to speak to her as he did, and he didn't have a right to burden himself with their collected past. It was a conflict that was innately personal and shared, which made it difficult to figure out and work through.

Felicity washed the cuts that she could and took count of the bruises in the quiet. This time it was Sara that let the other girl hold her head for her and appraise. Sara didn't even flinch when the iodine found the broken skin. She allowed herself to relax into the wondering and healing fingers of the computer nerd. The thought made her smile for a moment.

"You're going to have a heck of a black eye," Felicity said, touching the purpling skin under the socket. "You should have waited."

"I'm fully capable of defending myself," Sara insisted, opening her eyes as the warm and soft hands disappeared from her face and neck and head. Felicity shook her head and threw the leftover supplies back into the kit. "This happens, bruises and what not," Sara tried. But Felicity shook her head softly and went to her freezer, grabbing a bag of frozen veggies. "I could have cleaned myself up. I've taken a bullet out of my own leg, I can handle a few scratches."

"Then why didn't you?" Felicity challenged, tiling the blonde's head again as she stood between her legs.

"I wanted to be taken care of," Sara confessed. "I didn't want to be alone."

Felicity laid the frozen bag on the eye in question. Sara watched her run her hand through her hair and puff out her cheeks, mind working too hard. She felt silly with a frozen bag covering half of her face, but it did feel nice.

"What am I supposed to do with you?" Felicity searched Sara's face, shaking her head slightly. It was a legitimate question in her mind. Sara bit at the inside of her cheeks.

"Coming back is kind of easier when you take care of me," Sara swallowed. "Not so much hate burning in my lungs."

"I don't like seeing you like this," Felicity shook her head.

"I better get better at ducking then," Sara smiled wryly.

Sara didn't want to figure out if she was pushed forward because of the events of the night or by her own free will or adrenaline or fate or destiny or anything of the sort. She was here, in Felicity's apartment, because she wanted to be near her because there was peace near her that wasn't anywhere else, and certainly not in her lonesome hate and anger. Oliver's words rang in her ears though, telling her to get it together, to not be so pig headed, to focus.

Gently, Sara held Felicity's wrist as she started to move, pulling her back. She held there, her other hand holding the frozen bag. Felicity didn't try to move or get out of her grasp. Instead she looked away, at the corner of the table, at the wall, running her fingers through her hair, scratching her neck anxiously. Sara's blue eyes were lethal from a distance, and so close, Felicity knew she'd be a goner. But like a Siren, she couldn't avoid their call. Softly, Sara pulled on Felicity's arm, bringing her down to her level. She removed the frozen bag for a moment and kissed the nurse who had so easily healed her.

Felicity leaned into the kiss of her own vocation. Her hand moved to Sara's neck so soft she could feel the goose flesh forming there under her finger tips. Sara's lips were sweet and soft. A cold hand ran along her hip, finding a sliver of hip where her sweatpants rolled. Unwittingly Felicity hummed in contentment, wanting more, kissing more, gripping more. She wasn't sure how it happened, but she found herself sitting on Sara's knee, both hands rooting themselves somewhere on the hero's body.

"Geeze," Felicity sighed, leaning her forehead into Sara's neck as she attempted to catch her breath. "How do you do that? You just... You come with the lips and the suaveness and the whatever else," she shook her head. Sara laughed a bit at her prattling sidekick. "Goodness."

"I'm sorry, I can stop trying to kiss you, if you'd like," Sara offered.

"I didn't say that," Felicity smiled. She reached behind herself on the table and placed the bag back on Sara's face before kissing her cheek. "Maybe when your face doesn't look like a coloring book I'll kiss you."

"Now that's some new motivation," Sara grinned.

She watched Felicity shake her head and start to throw the kit back in its spot under the sink and then stop.

"I guess I should leave this out then, if this is going to be a running theme," she said mockingly. "You're going to have to restock it." Sara just nodded, trying not to smile at the insinuation of the words. She leaned back in the chair, stretching out her legs and tilting her face up so the bag rested there on its own. Sara kept her eyes closed and lounged while Felicity shifted around her, finally settling in a chair on the other side of the table.

"Are you writing about me in your diary?" Sara asked, hearing the steady stroke of the keyboard.

"I don't have a diary," Felicity defended herself quickly. "You interrupted me emailing my dad, and I just want to finish or I'll put it off even longer."

"I come here, you clean me up, kiss me quite roughly, and then email your dad before bedtime?" Sara listed, amazed at the categorical mind. She allowed herself a peak with her good eye to find Felicity giving her a look over her laptop screen.

"If I don't finish, it'll take another week, and I feel bad enough already," she complained, returning to her typing. "Just sit there and try not to ruin my veggies." That made Sara chuckle to herself because Felicity, when not an awkward and clumsy mess, was quite funny without trying. It was her earnestness, Sara thought.

Felicity wrote to her father that she was very happy, and that recently things were looking up for her. She wrote that she had new friends that were amazing and thoughtful, and that she felt fulfilled. She told him that she loved him and her mom and that she would visit as soon as she could. Felicity peaked over her laptop to see the tired, lathargic pose of the superhero across the table, humbled by a bag of veggies from her freezer. There was a peace that seemed unfamiliar on Sara's face and Felicity tried to place it. In returning to her email, she slipped in one line that she wasn't dating anyone, but she had an option she was kind of excited about. That was it, just one line. She closed the email in promising to call and asking her father to write back with news from their trip abroad.

In recounting her day, Sara decided that relaxing with a bag of frozen food on her face in Felicity's apartment was the high point, ahead only slightly, to the dinner they shared, and well in front of the solid kick she took to her ribs that was aching her presently. She heard the keys clacking and Felicity would pause and erase or type quicker. For a moment, Sara allowed herself to thing that this could be normalcy, like she hadn't been a castaway eventually trained by a group of international assassins. For just a moment, she was quietly sharing a room with a girl that made her smile and kissed so good it made time stand still and speed up all at once. For a moment, she never got on that boat, and she knew nothing of suffering or pain.


	3. Chapter 3

_This is torturous electricity_  
_Between both of us and this is_  
_Dangerous 'cause I want you so much._

"You have to get back to work," Felicity sighed. Her hands betrayed her, though, pulling tighter on the back of Sara's neck, tangling her fingers in her hair. Sara didn't bother responding, but instead continued to attack Felicity's neck, sucking and biting as she lifted her head, granting her more access. Felicity felt the thumping of the music and Sara's hands and couldn't be bothered to mean what she said.

The metal from the stock shelf dug into her back as Sara pushed against her harder. In the dimly lit stock room, eyelids shut tightly, Felicity only felt Sara's warm hands and breathing on her skin. It felt as if Sara was everywhere on her at once. For a tiny girl, it felt like Sara could cover any distance before Felicity could think. Felicity's back arched into her when Sara's hips pressed harder against her. Again, Sara captured Felicity's lips and made it harder for both of them to breathe. It was as if Felicity had no control and she didn't know what to do, but good Lord, she tried to hold on to the ride.

"I have to get back to work," Sara nodded, pulling away severely dazed. Her body stayed flush with Felicity's.

This is what happened between them with increasing frequency and intensity. They found each other in passing, for just a small fraction of time, and Sara would kiss Felicity or Felicity would kiss Sara and they both would try to push time outward, to leave them alone. It was nothing like this though. This was unbound and new and unrestrained.

It'd been nearly a month since Felicity found herself searching her freezer for something to ice the hero's face, and she found the time they got alone to be less than desired. They were both busy and distracted and somehow still tiptoeing around whatever was happening. Sara only found herself being mended by Felicity a few times, and all of them in the basement, no longer brave enough to tap on her window. Felicity found herself leaving her drapes open.

But the time they had together had fueled this moment. The tiny touches hidden from the eyes of the boys, the lingering hands when Sara showed Felicity how to defend herself, Felicity tracing the bruises of Sara's ribs one night, or stitching a slice on her thigh, the general being in the same room with each other.. all of it added up to an eagerness to do something. They didn't have another night when Sara relaxed with a frozen bag on her face while Felicity wrote before they both climbed into bed and fell asleep quicker than they wanted. The didn't have periods alone, , there were just moments.

This moment, however, would have been both of their favorites. When Felicity appeared at Verdant she went on a dare to herself. With Oliver and Diggle out of the country, Felicity couldn't bring herself to go to the basement and work. Oliver had given her a few days off from both the company and crime fighting and she already made plans to take the train to see her family in Central City.

But tonight, she wanted a drink. She wanted to slip back into the fading normalcy that felt unattainable. When she awkwardly made it to the bar and caught Sara's eye she immediately regretted her decision. She became self-conscious and nervous, much the opposite to Sara's confident, playful demeanor as she shook drinks and opened bottles. They bantered as best they could over the music, Sara leaning over the counter and speaking with her lips close to Felicity's ear. She was cocky while she worked. It was disarming to Felicity. Though she was used to seeing the girl's confident nature, her performance at work felt so foreign, yet oddly attractive.

But after her first drink was done, Felicity found herself being pulled into the stock room. Sara whispered that she couldn't help it, as if an apology, when she kissed Felicity hard, holding both her cheeks. Felicity couldn't speak. She was kissed and pinned against the shelves. She only felt her heart thumping in her chest, wildly out of control, spurred towards recklessness by the drink and Sara's lips and hands and hips and everything.

"I didn't think I'd see you," Sara confessed, finally pulling away completely. "I can't imagine you've had free time since taking up with the Arrow. I figured you'd be home with a pint of ice cream and a broken computer."

"I'm actually heading to my parent's for the weekend," Felicity explained. "I just wanted to let you know and check on something... downstairs... in the basement." Felicity was a horrible liar, but was grateful that Sara didn't call her on it except for a disbelieving glance.

"Look at you, making the first move," Sara grinned, crossing her arms.

"_You_ pulled me into a closet," Felicity returned sheepishly. "I just came for a drink."

"Your parents are in Central City, right?" Sara ignored the accusation. Felicity nodded. "When do you leave?"

"Tomorrow morning, on the early train."

"Wow," Sara sighed, leaning against a utility sink, stuck on the opposite side of the small closet. There were still less than a foot apart. "I'll be all alone in the city for the first time since I've been back."

"Your dad and sister are here," Felicity reminded her. "And Sin, and Thea, and Roy."

"Yeah, but I don't _want_ to hang out with them," Sara shrugged. "Not in closets, at least." Felicity burned red. "Especially not on my first free weekend from crime fighting responsibilities."

They stood in the quiet of the muffled music and conversations.

"Should we talk about this...?" Felicity gestured between the two of them, across the divide. "I mean I think we should. There's this. And I didn't expect. What I mean. I expected. Well I did come here. It feels like something we should talk about. And I, it's been a while, kind of, and I feel like we're just... avoiding-"

Sara kissed Felicity. She kissed her because she looked adorably befuddled, hands moving in the air, grasping for the right words and growing more anxious as they failed to capture them. Mostly she kissed her because Sara was sick of words, and not good at them easier, and silence was easier for her to communicate through. Sara could punch a guy that was looking at Felicity at the bar the wrong way. She was in no way capable of telling her that she liked her again.

"We probably should," Sara relented as she waited for Felicity to open her eyes. "I get off at two."

Felicity nodded and leaned forward to kiss Sara again. She cupped her cheek and kissed her sweetly. It was very much unlike what had happened when they first got into the closet. It startled Sara in its simplicity. It was something that Sara thought herself incapable of starting. But Felicity did it so easily.

"I'll leave my window open," she smiled, happy with herself for turning the tables for once.

"Or I'll use the door," Sara offered. "I seem to get scolded for using the window."

"Either way works," Felicity grinned. She played with their intertwined hands for a few seconds. "I'll see you later," Felicity smiled and left Sara standing alone in the closet.

Sara sighed and fell back against the shelf. She stared at the ceiling and closed her eyes and tried to convince herself that it was okay to be happy. That things weren't the same as they'd been before, and she was allowed to be enamored. That there could be something good at the end of it all. Sara took a deep breath and tried to get a grip on it all.

* * *

The early morning hour found Felicity anxiously checking her tiny suitcase and generally busying herself with small things around her apartment. She'd hoped that by keeping busy her anxieties wouldn't drive her up a wall, but it didn't work as well as she'd expected. While she put away dishes she tried to think of what to say. While she folded her laundry she tried to not think about the closet. While she straightened and cleaned and tidied she tried not to worry about what was coming to her door. But in all of her endeavors she ended up thinking about everything despite it all.

Even though she'd been expecting it, the knock on her door made her jump. Before she opened it, Felicity looked at herself in the mirror, wishing she'd spent more time on putting on something else or touching up her make up, until she scolded herself and shook her head and opened the door.

"Hey," Sara greeted her with a kiss on the cheek before entering the apartment.

"Hi," Felicity grinned dumbly. She locked the door and stayed in that spot, watching Sara slowly move towards the center of the room.

"It smells like my grandma's house in here," Sara observed with an amused look around. "Very clean."

"I like to clean before I go anywhere," Felicity explained, moving into the apartment as well. "So I can come home to a cozy apartment." Sara nodded and rubbed her elbow awkwardly.

"It looks nice," she assured her.

"Thanks," Felicity nodded, swallowing awkwardly. They both racked their brains for small talk for some reason.

"So what are you going to do in Central City?" Sara tried. "Anything you're looking forward to?"

"This is going to sound lame," Felicity sighed nervously. "But I'm really excited to have my mom's cooking."

"That's not lame," Sara promised, leaning on the wall. Felicity almost couldn't stand how effortlessly confident and easy-going Sara always looked. "When I was... away... I didn't crave much, but almost all of the time I would have given my left arm for my mom to make me a peanut butter and banana sandwich." Felicity giggled slightly at the admission.

"I just hate cooking," Felicity shrugged. "My mom isn't the best, but she tries, and I like family dinner. I think my brother might even make an appearance."

"You sound happy," Sara observed.

"I haven't seen my family in a long time," Felicity nodded.

"Six years long?" Sara tried to joke.

"What? Oh, God, no. I'm sorry. I didn't mean-"

"I'm kidding."

"No, of course, but I shouldn't have. I didn't mean. It isn't."

"Seriously, it's okay," Sara laughed, holding her hands out to calm the alarmed tech. Felicity nodded and took a deep breath with a sheepish smile.

"Sometimes I forget," Felicity confessed. "I just... I never knew you before. I forget that you died."

"Me too, sometimes. For a few minutes, if I'm lucky."

Thoughtfully they both looked anywhere but each other. The canyon between them felt impassable. Sara stood against the wall, nervously counting each breath, desperately afraid of committing to something so fragile and someone so unlike herself, someone who was kind and good and wore gym outfits that matched her fingernail polish. Felicity crossed her arms and stood in the middle of the kitchen, occasionally chewing on her bottom lip, wondering if she was brave enough.

"The last girl I dated occasionally tries to kill me and is the heir to a cult of trained assassins," Sara finally broke the silence.

"Wow," Felicity realized.

"And I think I would like to get to know you, the girl who steals grapes from the grocery store, because I think you might be a better adventure."

"I probably won't try to kill you."

"There's that upside," Sara nodded. "What I'm trying to say, is you said we should talk, and I'm talking. Which I'm terrible at. But I really enjoy being around you. You look at me like I'm not who I am. And I like who you think I am. I want to be who you think I am."

Felicity stared hard at Sara, who looked back at her with that adorable side grin.

"And I think I don't want you to kiss Barry Allen like you kissed me earlier tonight," Sara added quickly. "Is that enough talk?"

"As long as you're not making out with assassins in closets," Felicity smiled.

"This seems like a fair compromise," Sara nodded.

"You won't go out and find trouble when I'm gone, will you?" Felicity asked, oddly nervous by the question.

"I'll try," Sara offered. Trouble had a way of finding her, so it wasn't a complete lie.

"Take a few days off. Go see a game with your dad or something."

Sara just nodded, more relieved that she'd said what she wanted and it came out well enough that Felicity had no qualms. She'd probably agree to anything Felicity wanted at that point. Sara had dreaded the entire trip to Felicity's apartment, nervous about what was happening. Now, she was hyped on adrenaline at her confessions.

"You could always hang out with your sister," Felicity tried. Sara took a step towards her slowly, pushing off of the wall. Felicity just kept talking, growing oddly nervous now that there was nothing left to talk about, now that there was a bridge over the canyon. "Or you could go see a movie with Sin." Another few steps and a smile. Sara took off her coat and put in on the chair. "Those are all good alternatives to picking fights in the Glades."

"I will stay out of trouble," Sara promised. "I'm going to kiss you now, to make it all official." She waited for Felicity to catch up. All Felicity saw were ice blue eyes and a grin that made her knees forget how to hold her up. "Okay?" Sara asked, eyes darting between Felicity's eyes and lips. She watched her lick her lips. She watched her shoulders expand with a breath that stayed in her lungs in anticipation.

Slowly, Felicity nodded. Sara took her time. She looked between them and placed her hands on Felicity's ribs and watched them move to her hips. Felicity's hands fiddled absently with a button on Sara's shirt. She took another step closer, as if she could get any closer. Sara's lips hung close to Felicity's. She watched her eyes close and wait. She felt her lean forward. One hand slithered to her neck and guided Felicity's lips to Sara's once and for all.

This wasn't a kiss like the storage closet. That was violent and needy, rushed in a storage room on a break. Felicity's lips teased Sara, making her work harder. This was a kiss that burned slow and hot. Tentative at first, it only grew at an exponential rate, fueled by so many moments over the past month where both refrained from trying or making a move. This kiss threw away the inhibitions and for the first time, felt very honest.

Felicity's fingers worked hectically on the buttons of Sara's shirt, clumsily pulling each one with more force than necessary. She didn't want to break the kiss though. She wanted to be kissed like that forever. But when she felt the skin of Sara's abs and ribs, she felt her reward enough.

Sara allowed Felicity the chance to explore, disentangling her hands from her hair as Felicity pushed the shirt from her shoulders. The move surprised Sara as bold and purposeful and only made her more eager. The kiss grew more frantic. Felicity's hands grew more brave and Sara gasped to feel fingernails ghosting along her skin.

Filled with the moment, Sara tugged at the hem of Felicity's shirt, lifting it up over her head and throwing it somewhere in the apartment. She smiled to find Felicity's face flushed and eyes still lidded with determination. Sara grabbed her again, kissing her harder, feeling her tongue, biting her lips. Carefully she tried to direct them to the bed. They stalled at the wall with a thud, Felicity undeterred by her back on the cold wall.

"Almost," she whispered. Sara chuckled and sucked on the skin where her shoulder met her neck. Felicity's hips moved on their own, rolling closer and harder against Sara's. Her bra was gone a second later. Maybe it'd been gone for longer. She couldn't be sure. The only thing she knew was that Sara was torturing her and she was going to explode, right there.

"That way," Felicity directed Sara as the hero dipped slightly and lifted her. Felicity wrapped her arms around her neck and kissed her harder than before as Sara wobbled and tried to direct them to the bed. She squeezed her legs around Sara's hips as they fell into the comforter finally.

"Christ, fuck," Felicity gasped as Sara dipped her hips and pushed her thigh into her. Sara could practically feel steam on her neck with her words. Felicity's nails dug into her shoulders, and encouraged, she moved her hips again, earning a hiss this time.

Sara hadn't heard Felicity curse often, and said in such a quiet, breathy way, it drove her crazy. She wanted more of the tiny swears on her skin. They made her ache. She made her ache.

A hand slipped into her pants and Felicity's hips jumped again. She gave up trying to control them. She moaned into Sara's mouth, no longer caring to maintain composure.

It was like a pistol at the start of a race, then. Pants were pulled and discarded. Any nervousness was long gone. Legs were spread. Tongues tasted and and teeth nipped and tested, and fingers wondered quickly and purposefully.

Sara was unable to control herself. She felt it slipping from her with every taste, every plea from Felicity. But then every time she tried to regain it, Felicity would make a noise, would look at her, would move, would breathe, and she couldn't stop. She wanted to make her dance. She wanted to give her everything. And she didn't stop until Felicity was speechless, soundless, shaking.

Felicity reveled in her control. Having the hero squirming under her, empowered by her own pleasure at Sara's hands, she held a composure that ruined Sara. Calculated and precise, Felicity drove Sara forward until she was clenching the sheets in a white-knuckled grip. Chest heaving and skin burning, Felicity laid herself atop Sara as she tried to catch her breath and stop seeing stars. To have that kind of power over someone so strong was intense enough.

Lazily, with her senses slowly returning to her, Sara ran her fingertips along Felicity's spine. Occasionally Felicity hummed in contentment. Sara felt sweat and her muscles under the skin of her back. She kept her eyes closed because she didn't have the power to open them. Not with a naked Felicity draped over her. She shifted her hips and Felicity grumbled.

"Wow," Sara whispered finally once her heart stopped trying to burst.

"Yeah," Felicity nodded.

Neither could feel their muscles. Neither could think coherently.

"We should probably do that again sometime," Sara observed. "Not now, I mean in general."

"Yeah," Felicity nodded again. "Definitely. As soon as I can feel my fingers."

Neither was sure how it started again. But soon enough they were eagerly exploring the new playgrounds before them. It all blurred into one long, long moment until neither could move. And when they fell asleep, they fell asleep awkwardly tangled and too tired to move to correct it.

The sun was barely up when the alarm blared. Tiredness hung on Felicity's eyes when she stretched and rubbed them after slamming her hand on the snooze of the screaming clock. Her mind was slow in waking after such little sleep. But it all came back to her when she realized she was very much naked. Quickly, she shot up in bed, gripping the sheet to her chest. The other side of her bed was rumpled though empty save for a tiny yellow origami bird.

In her haze, Felicity blinked and looked around the apartment to see if Sara had really gone. It was quiet and assured her she was alone. She allowed herself to sink back into the bed and pick up the bird from the pillow. She held it in front of her face and spun it around, smiling at the small toy. In the dim light of early morning she tried to fight the smile, but she couldn't. The night played in blurred and hazy clips in her head. It only made her blush and smile bigger.

_Duty calls. xx. _was written on one of the bird's wings in tiny, precise handwriting.

Felicity flapped the wings and stared at the tiny toy. She wanted to ask it a million questions, but knew she'd get the exact same answers she'd get if she asked its creator. Instead, she elected to be romanced at the sweet and simple gesture.

When the alarm sounded again, Felicity turned it off and slipped her feet to the floor. She took a moment to hold the canary in her palms once more before standing and placing it on the window sill.


	4. Chapter 4

_I was whispering in my sleep.  
All the secrets that I keep,  
I said to you._

"Show it to me again," Sara exhaled, running her palm along her jaw and cheek. She was weary and exhausted and it showed.

A picture came back onto the computer screen and Sara stared at it without moving an inch. She held her hand over her mouth and took a deep breath again, trying to find some state of understanding. Instead, the image defied logic and made her restless.

"Why are Ra's al Ghul's henchmen in Starling City?" Oliver asked, flipping through the images of the damage done at the airport. Sara felt a thickening of the muscles of her shoulders, as if the stress and tension were already twisting a key in her back like an old wind-up car. She ran her hand through her hair and left her forehead in her palm, fingers pinching the bridge of her nose, racking her brain for any idea. She was out. She was one step closer to putting the past six years behind her.

"I was released," Sara insisted, still rubbing her eyes. "It doesn't make sense."

"He came for _you_," Digg added, putting down his torn apart gun and pausing his cleaning. "Lyla sent me this." In a second he pulled up another image of a black origami canary. Sara thought about the one she made Felicity and left on her pillow the last time she saw her. Ra's had taught her. One of the few kindnesses he ever showed or extended. Instead of a token of affection, this black and crumpled canary was a message, a calling card. "They didn't release it to the public, but it was found at the scene."

"I will find him," Sara decided, clicking through the images.

"We'll go tonight," Oliver nodded.

"He won't talk to you, not about League business," she clenched her jaw. "And he'll know you're there," she quieted him when he opened his mouth. "I'll go. If he wanted me dead, I'd be dead. This isn't about that."

Both of the men looked at her, wanting to pick a fight. She knew she would have to lose Oliver and he would try to follow her no matter what. But for their credit, neither of them fought her to her face, instead allowing her to think that she was right. But they didn't understand. If she had been released, she was as good as an outcast and as bad as a traitor. Ra's didn't send messengers here to have a origami party or braid each other's hair. If they had severed ties and she was essentially dead, he came to speak to a ghost about something only ghosts could do.

"It's probably just some unfinished business," she nodded, trying to put them at ease. "Or a social call," she chuckled.

"It's not something to kid about," Olive scolded her. He flipped through whatever research he had on the screen. "This guy is trouble."

For a moment she ignored him and sat back in her chair, stretching her legs outward. Her joints ached sometimes, overworked and pushed to their limits in her work. Oliver and Diggle spoke to each other about the situation they had nothing to worry about. It wasn't theirs. It was her's and her's alone. So she let them talk about things they didn't understand. She disappeared in her head to Felicity's bed and the feeling of her entire body slung over her own. The pressure of her breathing chest pushing against her own. The skin of her spine under Sara's fingers. It was all right there in her mind.

"I'll take care of it," Sara gritted as Digg sat back down and Oliver continued to think aloud.

"Take care of what?" Felicity bounced happily into the basement.

"Hey!" Sara hopped up out of her chair.

"Hi!" Digg added.

"You're back!" Oliver exclaimed. They all stood awkwardly. The wide smile on Felicity's face faltered. Oliver exited the screen when Digg hugged the returned woman and asked about her trip. Oliver did the same.

Felicity was dizzy with the hugging and twirling by the time she made it to the final member of the trio. But seeing Sara gave her a goofy grin again, so wide it was an all-teeth-smile.

"Hi," Sara grinned after a brief moment of catching her breath. Felicity jumped a bit, and wrapped her arms around her neck and buried her nose in Sara's neck.

"Hi," Felicity mumbled, still smiling into Sara's shoulder.

Sara squeezed her happily, suddenly miles away from Ra's and the League. It'd been a long weekend for Sara, unable to keep her promise to stay out of trouble, she was tired all over. Felicity hadn't realized how excited she was to see Sara until this moment. This was just a pleasant moment for them. They were new and exciting and good. That was what caught Sara the most. This felt good. After six constant years of bad, this good was addictive.

"You look nice," Sara said as Felicity pulled away. Unfortunately it was all that she could think to say. Felicity wasn't due back for a few hours, or so she thought, and so she was not ready to be quick witted and charming. Instead she was caught in the excitement of the surprise.

Felicity kissed Sara before she could worry about what to say after- nonchalant and easy, normal and routinely, as if it were the most natural thing in the world to show such affection so easily. It was soft and chaste and broken by a smile.

Sara watched the blush in Felicity's cheeks when she realized what she had done. Slowly her arms unwound their way from Sara's neck. She cleared her throat and looked around quickly, full of awkward and unease. That was a moment Sara could never explain how endearing her innocence was.

Luckily Oliver and Digg pretended to be engrossed in other things, peaking out of the corner of their eyes to see if the moment was done. With flighty eyes Felicity looked around the room, attempting to avoid the smirking Sara, but inevitably failing.

"So, it was a nice weekend then?" Oliver asked.

"What? Yeah, oh... yeah, definitely," Felicity nodded, swallowing quickly. "Thanks. My parents were glad to see me. It was a welcomed break." Sara took her seat at the computer and watched Felicity fidget. "How was yours? Topple the international arms market?" Oliver just smirked and shook his head. "So, what are we working on? I didn't see any vigilante sightings on the news..." Felicity was already digging through her bag, oblivious to those around her while she spoke. After her weekend she was eager to contribute again, to be part of the team.

Diggle shot Oliver a look who in turn shot a look at Sara while Felicity started typing. Sara shook her head slightly.

"I am actually heading to a gala to raise money for the Glade's department of education," Olive said.

"You told me to tell them you weren't attending," Felicity looked up, questioningly.

"I didn't think I'd be back in time, and now Thea is making me," Olive confessed.

"There's been a string of muggings near the clinic," Felicity offered.

"Tomorrow," Digg interjected. Felicity turned to Sara now, hopeful that there would be something they needed her for tonight. Three days off made her antsy and anxious to do something, as if now that they weren't doing anything, something terrible would happen. It made Felicity feel selfish for reasons she couldn't place.

"I promised my dad I'd have dinner with him," Sara lied easily. Felicity furrowed her brow. "What?" she shrugged. "You said you didn't get in until late."

"Fine," she turned back to her computer. "I'm going to work on the muggings so you'll have something to go on tomorrow."

"It's good to have you back, Felicity," Oliver offered. "Don't work so hard. Crime is down. Blood is gone. The city is starting to rebuild."

"I like doing something my dad might be proud of one day," she offered, looking at him over her shoulder. He smiled and nodded. Hearing her dad speak of the vigilantes in Starling City made Felicity's chest puff with pride, so much that she hoped one day she would be able to tell him all that she did to help them, to make the world a bit better. It also made her nervous to introduce Sara, and that was its problems.

"I will see you tomorrow," he decided. "Isabel will be on a rampage, I'm sure."

"Thank goodness sitting in on meetings is not in my job description," Dig stretched and smiled, putting his suit coat on in one fluid motion.

"But body guarding me at parties is," Oliver joked.

"Felicity, I'm glad you're back," Digg offered as he clicked his gun together once more and followed Oliver towards the stairs. Felicity didn't notice the looks the boys gave Sara as they ascended the stairs. She was muttering already and searching for a cord to connect her laptop. Sara shook her head again and glared at Oliver to get her point across.

"Okay, well this was an anti-climatic reunion," Felicity sighed. "Lucky I've been working on a new program for the... the...This place needs a name." She was already busy typing again.

"You're cute," Sara smiled, leaning on the desk after the door closed. Felicity took no notice of the blonde's words, or at least not voluntarily. A hint of pink crept up her neck as she focused too intently on the screen. "Do you want to make out? We are alone now..."

Felicity jumped slightly at Sara's words, turning quickly to look at her, fingers hovering above the keyboard. Sara met her eyes with a grin that would have knocked her down if she weren't already sitting. Sara could see how torn she looked, eyes darting back to the screen and chewing on her bottom lip.

"I really want to work on this," Felicity sighed. "But also make out at the same time... This is torture. Because I've been waiting to do this since I left, and now I would really like to make out."

"The perils of dating a nerd," Sara sighed and rolled her eyes, scooting the chair a bit closer. "What are you working on?"

With a small smile, Felicity began talking a mile a minute. Sara knew that she'd made the right choice in letting Felicity loose on her pet project. She would have rather kissed her, but this was still new and good and she didn't want to corrupt it, and she didn't want to push Felicity, and most importantly, she had already lied to her in the past fifteen minutes since she'd been back.

In great detail that Sara repeatedly had to ask her to dumb down, Felicity spoke quickly and eagerly about the hack she wanted to perform that would do something so that she didn't have to do something else and then they would have access to this and that. All in all, Sara was lost from the word go, but she pretended to tag along as best she could because it was important to Felicity, and Felicity already tried to to take part in Sara's hobbies.

But Sara didn't behave the entire time. She leaned her cheek on Felicity's shoulder and listened to her talk. She kissed the skin exposed there. She ran her fingers along Felicity's thigh. She did everything to have these moments filled.

"How long is this... um... hack... going to take?" Sara asked after seeing the time.

"Hours," Felicity's eyes flashed with even more eagerness. "Think about it like I'm you, stealthily creeping along rooftops so I don't get seen, which takes longer than just running down the middle of the street in a straight, direct path."

"Just when I think you've hit the cap on cute...," Sara shook her head, trailing off as she stood. "I have to go meet Laurel."

"I thought you were having dinner with your dad?"

"I'm meeting Laurel first and then we're heading over together," Sara covered, sliding her hands in her pockets. Felicity stopped typing. She turned in her chair.

"You're not lying to me, are you?" she asked, point blank.

"Nope," Sara shook her head. "Lance Family Dinner night was technically you're idea. Once I mentioned it to Dad, there was no getting out of it." Before Felicity could try to think too much, Sara leaned down and kissed her. She lingered as long as she could, tasting her lips, feeling her tongue. Felicity's fingertips pulled at her cheeks.

"Okay, I forgot how nice that was, I take it back, I want to make out," Felicity offered.

"Leave your window open?" Sara grinned, pulling on her jacket. Felicity nodded. Sara leaned back down, held her chin and kissed her forehead. "I'll see you later."

"Be safe," Felicity called.

"Always," Sara assured her.

* * *

"This!" Felicity gestured at Sara's black and blue ribs. "This is Lance Family Dinner?" Sara cringed at the stabbing pain in her side and Felicity's anger. For a naturally inarticulate and shy girl, she was actually good at being angry.

Sara shook her head and took a breath, willing her lung not to push against her cracked ribs. Felicity didn't wait for Sara to speak, instead she paced and pulled at her hair after rooting her fingers there. Only after a few trips across the small living room did she pause and stare at the girl on her couch. Sara watched her open her mouth and shut it again. She took another step and looked back. Felicity had her finger pointed and snapped her mouth shut again after trying to articulate what her brain was scrambling. With a huff she stopped, clenched her jaw and marched into the kitchen.

With Felicity rummaging in the kitchen, Sara closed her eyes and took a deep breath. She was in trouble, and she knew it. She deserved it for lying. In this moment she understood how she would push Felicity away.

"Here," Felicity handed Sara two aspirin and a glass of water. Sara knew better than to argue in that moment, so she gingerly lifted herself slightly and took them like a scolded child.

"Out of frozen peas?" Sara asked as Felicity handed her an ice pack next. There was no response as Felicity returned to the kitchen.

Sara took a moment to appraise herself, grateful that the damage hadn't been worse. She'd debated coming to Felicity's, but the tone of Ra's henchmen made her nervous for reasons she couldn't pinpoint. So she resigned herself to taking the brunt of Felicity's anger to make sure she was alright. But also, because at the end of it all, this was where she truly wanted to be.

"Are you hungry?" Felicity asked. Her words were lifeless. Sara shook her head.

"Okay, I'll make something small," Felicity ignored her and returned to the kitchen. She had to do something with her hands. She had to be busy. When she was tense, Felicity became a worker ant, toiling away and mundane chores so she could process the bigger picture.

Rummaging through her pantry Felicity didn't allow herself to look at the blonde on her sofa. She didn't like the feeling of being lied to, especially by Sara, and especially since she asked her directly and given her a chance. After a great weekend and a great night successfully creating the program she'd been conceptualizing since she got on the train to Central City, Felicity felt her good mood getting farther and farther away. Suddenly, in this moment, she realized what it actually meant to be in a relationship with a vigilante. She realized how she could be pushed away.

"Here," Felicity handed the plate to Sara who sat up, abdomen flexing and bruise rippling under the movement and strain. Her shirt hung on the back of the sofa, discarded after a few minutes of meeting Felicity at the door.

When she knocked, Sara had been determined to play it cool, as if she weren't hurting. She got as far as kissing Felicity against her door. And then Felicity pushed back, slamming her against the wall. Sara had groaned and winced but kept kissing, lost for a moment to the pleasure of the other's lips. But Felicity's hands crept under her shirt and pressed on her ribs and squeezed at her back and made her yelp and pull away. Felicity's look of worry clouded to confusions. Sara tried to grin it away, attempting to kiss her again, but there was no chance. Slowly Felicity lifted her shirt and saw the wide and expansive discolorations. It surprised Sara how much concern and anger could go together. It was just a few broken ribs. But to Felicity it was a lot more.

"Thanks," Sara smiled, taking the plate with the perfectly square sandwich.

"Peanut butter and banana," Felicity sighed, sitting on the coffee table, defeated, exhausted in her anger. It subsided in the kitchen and turned to fear. Sara smiled at the sandwich.

Sara balanced the plate on her knees and picked up half with the hand that wasn't holding her ice pack. Felicity watched her take a bite and took the other half.

There was something different about this moment for both of them. No longer did it feel as if there was a canyon between them. There was no longer a barricade. Instead they sat, quietly chewing. The cold from the ice pack radiated through Sara's side and she was grateful for the cooling and freezing happening. It made it easier to breathe. Felicity caught herself sneaking peaks at the scars on Sara's abdomen.

"You lied to me," Felicity said finally, picking at the crust of the bread. She gave up on eating and put the rest on the plate.

"Yeah," Sara nodded. She took another bite to keep her mouth busy.

"Right to my face."

"Yeah." Sara put the plate on the coffee table.

"Tell me the truth now then," Felicity stated. Her spine straightened and she waited.

"I have to protect you," Sara shook her head. "I don't want you to worry or be afraid." Felicity stared at her hard, determined. There was a confidence that startled Sara. The wavering resolve shook her down.

"This isn't going to work if you lie to me. I'm sick of everyone trying to protect me. These are my choices. I've made them."

"Everyone else has to live with your choices," Sara reminded her, wincing as she adjusted. "You're the most mortal one of us. You have no training, no way to protect yourself. The rules are different for you. You haven't... you haven't known pain intimately. I don't want to..."

"I can't protect myself if I'm ignorant of what is happening," Felicity argued. Her frustration boiled over and she shook her head. "I can't just wait for you to show up at my door, torn apart but not telling me what is happening. You can't just lie to me."

Sara knew she was right. Somehow sharing her burden was difficult, especially when she knew it would weight Felicity down. It was too much to ask of someone to put up with her, and Sara was afraid to ask.

"Ra's has called upon me," Sara sighed. "I may be out of the league but I still owe him a debt. And there are things not even the League can do."

"What does that... I don't..."

"The League cannot kill without order or without cause," Sara bit at the inside of her lip. "They need someone outside of the rules. It's... personal for Ra's."

"They're... hiring you?" Felicity worked it through in her head.

"I will repay my debt and wash my hands of them," Sara explained.

"And that?" Felicity asked, pointing towards the ice pack.

"A parting gift from an angry ex," Sara grinned.

Felicity didn't notice. She was lost in thought. She was distracted by everything she'd learned. She knew it wasn't the whole truth. She knew what it implied. She knew that Sara would be tested to her soul by what they would require of her. She also knew that in reality she didn't want to know, and that was the hardest part. Sara was right, that Felicity was untouched by suffering.

"What am I going to do with you?" Felicity sighed. She looked at Sara and it made her hurt.

"Be patient," Sara whispered.

"It's not fair," Felicity shook her head. She leaned her chin on her hand.

"I know."

They sat quiet and still. Somehow being on the same side of the canyon, being atop the wall, it was more terrifying and more grey than being separated into black and white, divided by impenetrable space.

"I don't think this is a job I can retire from," Sara swallowed.

"It's not a job," Felicity shook her head hopelessly. "It's perverted therapy. You'll be done when you get all of your hate out."

"Like I said," Sara met her eyes finally. "I don't think it's something I can ever finish." It felt like a confession and it hurt Sara to say. As if she were losing the person Felicity thought she could ever be. As if she were realizing that she couldn't hide or pretend any longer.

There was the crescendo of piano, the quickening of pace between them. Felicity felt the bones of her chest betray her, constricting against her lungs and her heart, letting her breathe but hurting with every second. She inhaled quickly and looked at her anxiously twisting fingers, blinking quickly to not cry. She didn't want to believe that. She didn't want to believe that this was something unending, escapable only in death. She couldn't believe it.

Sara watched her worry. If she had to pinpoint it, that was the moment she fell in love with Felicity. When she raised her head and looked back at her with this resolve, this strength, this knowledge. She sniffled, but never cried. She shook her head slightly and smiled.

"That's not true," she insisted. It was quiet, but firm. Sara sat her jaw and looked down now. "There will come a day when you figure it out," Felicity promised. She cupped Sara's cheeks and lifted her head. Sara sighed. "And you will hang up the mask and the staff and the leather and... okay... maybe not the leather." Both girls smiled and laughed a little. "Because I hate to admit it, but you pull it off, really well."

"I won't lie," Sara promised. "But I can't promise the entire truth. Some of it is just... too much."

"Okay," Felicity gave in. It was all she could hope for in that moment. She smiled and looked at Sara's lips and then back at her eyes. She pulled her cheeks closer and kissed her softly. Sara winced at the extension, but let herself be kissed. "And stop getting hurt," Felicity ordered. Sara ignored her and kissed her again. "I mean it," Felicity pulled back for a second.

"Okay," Sara grinned and pulled her lips back again.

"I'm still mad," Felicity insisted, again pulling away.

"I'll make it up to you," Sara promised, pulling her back. Felicity laughed against her lips and moved to straddle her on the couch, wary of the damaged parts.

"Yeah?" she asked, hands on Sara's shoulders. "How?"

* * *

The morning came quietly with the steady drips of rain drops on the fire escape and the muffled rainstorm in the street. Felicity stretched and yawned, ducking her head into the pillow, wanting to keep the world at bay. Absently her hand searched under the covers, but to no avail. She sat up slightly, pushing hair from her face to discover an empty bed again.

For a moment she shoved her head back in the pillow and groaned. If she'd known that dating a superhero came with such a peculiar set of problems, she would have tried to talk to Sara and lay down some rules first. Grumpily Felicity mumbled into her pillow and listened to the rain until she suffocated herself in the pillow shell enough.

Turning over, she picked up the little paper canary and rolled her eyes at herself for already smiling at the gesture. She was going to have to have a talk with that girl. She was going to tell her that she was owed breakfast in bed and the ability to wake up to a girlfriend. At least once. Especially after last night.

Felicity searched under the wing but found no neat script on the bird at all. It was disappointing to not have a clue at all. She played with it, flipping it between her fingers, flapping the wings, twisting it around. It was a nice token. Somehow dating the Black Canary was becoming the best experience of her life, and Felicity could get used to it if Sara stuck around long enough to not make her so mad.

"I bet you were mad at me," Sara grinned from the wall, leaning against it between the living room and bedroom. Felicity jumped with a yelp and held the sheets close. Sara held up a brown bag and a tray of coffees.

"Something like that," Felicity pretended to scowl. Sara pushed herself from the wall and climbed onto the bed, taking a seat in the middle. "One morning, I would like to wake up with you still in my bed where I left you when I fell asleep."

"But I brought you breakfast and coffee," Sara offered as Felicity put her new canary on the window sill. When she slid back into bed, Felicity kissed Sara quickly and shook her head.

"One day you'll get a full night's sleep," Felicity tried, taking the lid from her mug and blowing. Sara rolled her eyes and did the same.

With the rain fogging at the window and the cars sloshing their way down the street, the two sat on the bed and sipped their coffees. Sara watched Felicity pull her hair up in a messy ponytail, yawning and stretching still. She took as many mental pictures as she could because for her, things had been historically fleeting when they were good. She looked at the two canaries on Felicity's window sill and smiled into her own cup.

"Thank you," Felicity finally smiled. "It was sweet for you to get breakfast." Sara smiled and pushed down a blush. "How are your bruises?"

"Sore," Sara nodded. "But I'll live."


	5. Chapter 5

_And we are so fragile,_  
_And our cracking bones make noise._

The sun was blinding, reflecting off of the glass faces of the other towers in the skyline. As it started to set, it tinted the entire sky a simmering type of orange, fueled by the flames of the skyscraper tinder. Felicity only noticed when the building next door flashed her so hard she could only see spots for a moment. It didn't stop her, though, for very long, and a few seconds after readjusting she was back to flipping through files, marking pages with tiny post-its, tediously reading the fine print.

When the phone rang she looked up for a moment and realized how quiet it had been on the floor and how quickly night came outside. The other lights from sparse offices lit up the skyline like a constellation. Sadly she realized she was part of a star in her office for someone else.

"Mr. Queen's office," she said mechanically into the phone. These were moments she missed her ninth floor office where she did a job she loved and left by five as opposed to being a secretary. Which is what she was, no matter what Oliver's insistence was. In truth, she did most of his work, even getting good enough at forging his signature to be more productive and have to lie less. "I'm sorry, he's just left," she lied easily. When she did have to, she got good at it. "Yes, of course, Mr. Laurence, I will have those faxed over to you as soon as Mr. Queen looks at them with his lawyer." She jotted a note for herself and tried to find a place that it wouldn't get lost in the mess of her desk. "I can have you them before lunch tomorrow. Of course," she smiled into the receiver. "Of course, yes, I will let him know. Have a nice evening."

In a moment of weakness she plopped her forehead onto her hands in the pillow of files. She shook it there, willing it to be a dream. She knew what people said about her in the company, that she was sleeping with Oliver for this job. Little did they know that she would have given it up in a minute if she could. She wanted to find some kind of joy in being a ventriloquist CFO in a multi-billion dollar corporation, but it wasn't as fun as it sounded.

She gave up moping and went back to her meticulous work as the night fully settled in the from the top floor of the building and even in the dark, Felicity knew it was chilly outside. It was the kind of night that just looked cool, with winter teasing on street corners. The elevator dinged and she caught a glimpse of a surprised blonde. She stapled her report and set everything down.

"Hi!" Sara greeted her with a big smile. "I've been looking for you everywhere."

"Hey," Felicity managed, leaning forward so Sara could kiss her. "I've been here."

"I see that," Sara said, appraising the desk. "I'm going to have a word with your boss."

"You could fight him for my honor," Felicity looked up after shuffling a few pages.

"I could take him," Sara shrugged and tried to look cocky as she sat on the edge of the desk.

Seeing Felicity working this hard bothered her. Sometimes her days ran for twelve to fourteen hours, on top of at least a few hours helping them in the Foundry. Oliver took advantage of Felicity's perfectionism. She knew Felicity thought she was kidding about having a word with Oliver, but it wasn't a joke.

The only good part about Felicity in the office was her office clothes, which Sara quite enjoyed seeing her in. For the life of her she couldn't understand how Oliver could let Felicity sit outside his office and not be driven crazy by thinking about those skirts... and right there... on the desk...

"So what brings you up to the penthouse?" Felicity interrupted Sara's salivating mind. When Sara swallowed she looked up to find Felicity arm deep in a filing cabinet.

"I missed you," Sara smiled sweetly as Felicity sat back down. Felicity smiled but waited for the real answer. "Aaaaand I am going to bust that drug den in the Glades with Ollie tonight so I won't see you later."

"There it is," Felicity shook her head and leaned back in her chair. "I knew you had ulterior motives."

"What? Am I incapable of being sweet without seeming like I have other motives?" Sara was mock-shocked. Felicity quirked an eyebrow. "Alright, point taken."

"It's been too long since we've had somewhat of a date," Felicity sighed. They were like ships passing in the night for the past few weeks. They'd grab a dinner here or there, occasionally a lunch, sometimes a break between Sara's bar tending and Felicity's work in the basement. Now that she thought about it, they'd never had a proper date. The closet they came was a shared peanut butter sandwich after their first fight. Sara hadn't even been able to spend the night in a good handful of days, much to the chagrin of both girls. "Or a date ever, actually."

"You want romance, Smoak?" Sara grinned and stood from the desk. "I can give you romance."

"I'll believe it when I see it," Felicity taunted her, spurring on in challenge.

Sara enjoyed her time with Felicity for these reasons. The banter was always fun and lively and very much about being alive in this moment, with this person, for right now because it was good and right. She dug her hands in her back pockets and leaned on her toes, staring back at the beautiful woman behind the desk.

"Challenge accepted," Sara decided.

"You think you're up for it?" Felicity leaned forward. "I know you're a busy vigilante and all, what with the drug dens and mob bosses and assassins and I just don't know if you could properly romance."

"Now you're just wounding my ego here," Sara toyed with the knick-knacks on the desk. Felicity picked up more papers, ignoring the pouting. She stapled with purpose. "What type of romance are you talking about? I don't want to over-do it and out-romance you."

"The good kind," Felicity returned, looking up just for a moment. "Dinner, movies, nice conversation," Felicity listed. "Properly asked out and all." Sara nodded with each. "A kiss at my door at the end of the night with no intention of coming in until I invite you, if the date went well, of course."

"I suppose asking to make out in Ollie's office isn't romantic enough?" Sara sighed, tilting her head and wiggling her eyebrows.

"That's my boss! Yuck! And friend," Felicity cringed. "In his office? Seriously? Are you serious?" Sara shrugged. She had been very serious. Felicity turned around in the chair, still murmuring to herself as she shoved papers in a drawer. "It's like fooling around in your parents bed. Just.. ugh."

"Well, now you've just ruined one of my favorite fantasies," Sara threw up her hands in defeat as Sara turned around.

"Seriously?" Felicity shook her head disapprovingly.

"I don't judge you for your love of me in leather," Sara pointed out. "Don't judge me, Smoak." Felicity flushed crimson and froze, staring at the desk, guilty and unable to deny it.

"Oliver's office?" was all Felicity could manage.

"Or right here," Sara offered. "I'm totally okay with either. You're desk is doable."

"Alright, you need to go," Felicity laughed. "This was a lovely visit and all, but I'm still dateless and you're still ditching me for a drug-dealer."

"You can't rush the perfect date," Sara smirked.

Once again she leaned across the desk and kissed Felicity. She kissed her as much as she could, as often as she could, and as far as she was concerned they'd missed a valuable chance in the office. Felicity's hand slipped behind her neck and pulled Sara closer. She felt her rise out of her seat slightly to meet her more easily. Sara shifted the papers under her.

"You'll be safe, won't you?" Felicity asked, lips inches from Sara's. Her eyes were worried and fixed on Sara's.

"Always am," Sara promised. "Will you say yes when I ask you out?" Felicity smiled and shrugged. "A wise guy," Sara rolled her eyes. "You're luck you're cute." She allowed herself one more kiss. Felicity sat in the chair, proud of herself.

"Go get'em," Felicity ignored Sara's comments.

"Always do," Sara grinned. "Get home safe. Don't stay too late," she called as she backed her way towards the elevator. "And prepare to be romanced."

Felicity just shook her head and watched her hero disappear into the elevator. When she heard the bell ding and door close she fanned herself with the folder she'd been gripping. For just a moment she allowed herself to wonder what death by sexual frustration at the hands of one Sara Lance would be like.

Time passed quickly as she tried to wrap up the contracts and get everything that was due tomorrow ready for the few hours Oliver would spend in the office.

Felicity put the last of the reports on a pile in the middle of Oliver's desk. She shook her head and thought about Sara's comment, that she should just move into the big office for all the work she did. It was almost as if she had. Oliver didn't spend enough time in it and getting him to sit in on meetings was near impossible. So Felicity had even taken it upon herself to decorate his office for him. She put pictures of his family in their frames and scattered them around, she picked out expensive bottles of liquor and filled his cabinet to entertain, she hung black and white photos from the city, she made it look used. Some days, it just felt as if she were acting out Oliver's real life so he could play all night.

Straightening up her own desk took longer as she had to filter through the notes she'd made throughout the day, making sure that she'd done them before throwing them out. But gradually she could see the top of her desk again, and that was a good sign.

"Well, hello," she whispered through a smile as a tiny, yellow bit of paper appeared after she picked up the last file. A perfect little canary sat in her palm and she looked towards the elevator even though Sara had been gone for over an hour already. "When did she...?" she observed, turning it all around in her fingers. Felicity shook her head and exhaled a great breath, still amazed.

_Sunday, 7. Romance?_ was scrawled a bit messier on a wing. In that moment, Felicity read the words a few hundred times it felt like. Of course Sara was capable of being sweet and romantic. She was good at everything. She could do the salmon ladder. And smile a smile that made Felicity forget how to breathe. And defeat legions of evil-doers while wearing that ridiculously sexy leather costume.

"I'm screwed," she sighed.

Felicity dimmed the lights in the office and locked his door behind her. It was already nearly eleven and she yawned as she shrugged on her coat. The janitor pushed his mop onto the floor as she pushed the button to leave. Felicity nodded her hello and greeting and wished him a good night. The trip down was slow and the heels were killing her feet, but Felicity chanted to herself that it was just a little longer before she could head home for a much deserved hot bath and sleep. She held the canary in her hands and stared at it still, as if she could figure something out about the maker in the creases. But it was hieroglyphics, if anything at all.

"How's your night, Billy?" Felicity asked, greeting the white-haired man behind the desk.

"Rockets are down," he grumbled, gesturing at the small television "It's a cold one tonight. Early freeze."

"I'll button up," she promised with a smile while making it around the security desk.

"It's going to rain tomorrow," he informed her still. "Bring an umbrella."

"Thanks. Have a Goodnight," Felicity waved over her head as she headed out the doors.

"Goodnight, Ms. Smoak," the old security guard called after her.

He hadn't been wrong about the cold, and unfortunately Felicity's dread had come true. The slight wind bit at her face and nose and she held her coat together to block it. Against the wind she made her way to her car, looking up at the sky and already seeing the big clouds of the rain Billy had promised.

"Hey, miss," Someone called out behind her. "Excuse me, you dropped-"

Felicity felt something hard and rough strike the back of her head. Her eyes felt like they were squeezed. Two guys were pulling at her as she went down. Felicity screamed as loud as she could, kicking at them. She landed a punch on one of the masked men's nose and blood covered her fist instantly.

"Fuck," he yelped. "Bitch punched me."

They grabbed her hands and the one without the bloody nose held a knife to her throat. Felicity didn't have time to think. She pressed herself against the sidewalk.

"Not. Another. Word," the voice hissed, pressing the blade into the soft skin near her carotid artery. Felicity swallowed and tried not to move. The blade was hurting her. She ground her teeth. "Wallet," he said. She shook her head.

If she could keep them here, Billy would have called the cops, someone would have heard, her two best friends would swing in at any moment. The blade pressed against her esophagus. The other mugger was spitting blood from his half-lifted ski mask.

"Don't kill her," he said. "This ain't the Glades."

"Search her then," the one with the knife barked, looking around. Felicity kicked at the one she'd already punched. She felt the knife cut at her again. He reared back. "Alright, knock it off," the one holding her barked, leaning close. "We're just looking to redistribute some wealth." He punched her in the face, making contact with her jaw and her eye and her cheek and her chin. Felicity felt as if she were drowning in blood.

The other one grabbed her bag and started searching her pockets. She bucked as much as she could.

"Where's your keys?" he asked. Again, Felicity shook her head, spitting at them with saliva and blood. "What's your ATM pin?" He pulled her keys from her pocket and wallet from the other.

"Don't make this hard," the other insisted. "Pin?" She shook her head and groaned. The knife moved to her arm and sliced along her forearm. "That's going to leave a mark." Felicity ground her teeth and tried to scream with his hand over her mouth. "Pin?" She tried to catch her breath.

"This is taking too long," the other nervously stated, looking around. This time a slow, long slice, deeper than the other ran along the same arm.

"I'm getting closer to that artery," the one with the knife taunted her. "Pin number?"

"Forget it," the other insisted. Felicity opened her eyes to see both of them over her before one of them bashed her on the head again.

* * *

"Where are you?" Digg rushed into the phone, avoiding a nurse as he sprinted through the hospital corridor, lost and flailing.

"Just rounded up the last straggler, the cops are nearly here, what's up?" Oliver returned.

"Get to the hospital now," Digg stopped at the nurse desk finally. "Smoak. I'm looking for Smoak."

"Down the hall, last door on the left," the nurse read from the chart.

"Digg? Digg?" Oliver pressed his hand to his ear to hear. He paused as he moved to put on his helmet. "What's happening?"

"Felicity, she got attacked," Digg said, sprinting towards a small collection of cops at the end of the hall. "Just get here." He hung up the phone and put it in his pocket, slowing to a halt when he reached the doorway.

* * *

"What's happening?" Sara asked Oliver as she saddled her motorcycle as well. Oliver tried to quiet her as he picked up the police scanners. They were going wild with sightings of the muggers near Queen tower. "Ollie?" Sara asked.

"You have to go to the hospital. Felicity was mugged on her way to her car tonight," he rushed, gripping his helmet tighter. "I'm going after them. I will be by later." Guilt and anger made his lungs oscillate feverishly. Felicity had warned them about the gang. That'd been her project. They'd dismissed it.

"What?" No. I was there," she shook her head.

"It happened just a half hour ago," he told her. "The wire is going crazy right now."

"Is she alright?" Sara rushed, brows knitting in confusion.

"Beat up pretty good," he inferred from the reports. Sara blazed red. She felt her neck heckle.

"I'm going with you," Sara insisted. "If they touched her..." she ground her teeth. "I will..." she flared.

"Go to the hospital," Oliver insisted, shrugging on his helmet. In one ear he had the scanner, in the other he had an angry Sara.

"I'm going to kill them," Sara put hers on. Oliver stopped her.

"You have to choose," he shook his head. "She needs you now. You can keep your mask on and help me kill every mugger and lowlife in town, or you can go to her. It's up to you. But you know what you have to do, now."

* * *

"And no marks that you could identify?" Officer Lance asked, still writing in his tiny notepad. Felicity shook her head.

"They were completely covered the whole time," she said.

"Felicity?" Digg rushed into the room, looking around haphazardly. "Are you alright? They said you were... Jesus," he said, observing her bruised face and bandages. He wrapped her in a hug, careful not to squeeze. Felicity didn't move to hug him back. Her arm hurt too much and was still slung.

"I'm okay," she nodded as he held her shoulders and surveyed.

"Do you have any idea about height, weight?" Officer Lance continued.

"Can you give us a minute?" Digg glared at him.

"Listen, I am just as mad," the policeman stood a bit straighter.

"Fat chance," Digg snapped back, dropping Felicity's shoulders. "Give her a chance to breathe."

"I need to update the APB with particulars because I am going to catch these guys and I am going to beat the crap out of them," Lance returned. "We don't have a minute."

"It's fine," Felicity nodded, leaning back in the bed. Digg stood beside the bed, bodyguard in full effect. "Um," Felicity turned back to the officer. "The one, I think was taller. He was slim. It was hard to tell. It was dark and they wore jackets. Identical jackets," she remembered. He jotted in his notebook.

"Eye color?" he asked. The officer hated looking at her. He'd done this a million times, but seeing Felicity like this felt personal. She was good.

Felicity shook her head, unable to remember.

"I punched the tall one," she said, swallowing hard. "He had blood coming out of his nose, it covered his shirt and coat and mask."

"We have techs working on matching the DNA we picked up at the scene," he informed her.

"Those boxing lessons really paid off," she turned to Digg to find him smiling with pride.

"This is your 'you-should-see-the-other-guy' story," he assured her. She laughed and winced.

"Is there anything else you remember or can tell me?" Officer Lance asked. "Take a moment. Just think." Felicity closed her eyes and replayed it, frightfully tensing through it.

"They're from the Glades, he said that. He said, 'don't kill her, we're not in the Glades'," she recounted, opening her eyes. He wrote in his notepad again.

From the hall they heard the screech of shoes on the tile and the sprinting of legs. Sara slid into the doorway a second later, slamming her shoulder against the doorway to stop herself. She was breathing hard and panting.

"Holy fuck," she said, eyes going wide when she saw Felicity in bed. For a moment there was no one else in the room and she couldn't take the last few steps towards the bed. She was paralyzed and amazed and terrified. The anger from just a bit ago flared up again, though this time it played a supporting role to the star of the show, her concern. "What happened?" she finally asked, holding her hands out and walking towards the bed.

Sara cupped Felicity's cheeks. She tried to be gentle. There was bruising and swelling on her cheek and eye, badly on one more than the other, with stitches over an eyebrow and tape on a cut on her nose. Everywhere looked so broken and hurt and frail. Felicity watched her blue eyes dart across her wounds, taking count, taking inventory. If anything they were bluer than ever before, and for now that felt as good as the painkillers.

"Are you alright, Felicity?" she asked, finally meeting her eyes. The wounded girl just nodded. "I left you alone for one night, Smoak," Sara shook her head and bit her lip. She hugged the girl in the bed snuggly a second later, pressing her palm into the back of her hair, keeping her close. She felt Felicity start to cry. She felt the shaking of her chest as she tried to hide it. "It's okay," Sara soothed her. "It's alright. It's okay, I'm here now. You're safe," she promised, kissing her temple beneath a bandage. "I'm so sorry." Sara ducked her head and breathed against Felicity's neck.

It wasn't until a clearing of a throat that Sara realized Felicity had calmed slightly. Slowly she pulled back and wiped at the cheeks of the girl in the bed. To her credit, Felicity toughed it out, keeping it in, putting on for the people in the room.

"Is there anything else, Detective Lance?" Felicity turned to the bewildered officer. Sara did a double take, finally noticing her father.

"Hi, Dad," Sara offered weakly.

"I have to go work on this," he said to his daughter. "But we should catch up sometime, daughter of mine." He paused before he moved though, looking back at the girl in the bed. Awkwardly he laid a hand on her hand. "I'm going to find the people who did this to you," he promised.

"I know," Felicity nodded appreciatively. He patted her hand and gave her a smile. Before he left he kissed he daughter's cheek and waved again.

Sara sat on the edge of the bed. Digg paced near the window. Both were anxious and restless in their own ways. Felicity rested in the pillow.

"Where's Oliver?" she realized, looking at her girlfriend who busied herself with holding her hand.

"Taking care of tying up loose ends," Sara told her.

"He won't kill them will he?" Felicity worried. Digg snorted and glared out the window. Sara shrugged.

"I would," she promised. Felicity shook her head and blink hard.

"No you wouldn't," she promised. "I wouldn't let you."

"Let me?" Sara scoffed. Felicity smirked and nodded.

"You got here quick," Felicity observed.

"I took some short cuts."

Sara looked around the room. She'd hated hospitals since forever. Now, she didn't mind holding Felicity's hand. Digg sat in the chair by the bed.

"What happened?" Sara finally asked, the quiet driving her crazy.

"I left work, same as always, and I got hit on the head near the ally," Felicity remembered. Sara watched the tape on her neck keeping about four inch long cuts together.

"Didn't anyone hear you?" Digg asked, leaning forward in the chair. Felicity shrugged.

"I yelled at first," she swallowed, looking at the blanket on her lap. "Then they had a knife... on my throat." Her good hand pressed on the adhesive tape there now. It was tender, but it reminded her. "I can't remember. It was a blur. I punched one in the face, he was spouting blood," she remembered. In that moment she also remembered how much blood came from her face. She hadn't seen a mirror yet, but she knew it had to be swollen and discolored.

"You should have just given them what they wanted," Sara stood and started to pace. Hearing the story made her tense. Hearing the words made her feel as if she should have been with Ollie.

"I thought someone would hear," Felicity shook her head. "I thought if I kept them around, they'd get caught." Sara watched her swallow again and close her eyes tightly. "I thought you guys would show up," Felicity blinked quickly and looked out the window.

That felt worse than a stab. That felt worse than a gunshot. Sara looked at Diggle and they both noticeably cringed. Sara watched him stand and place a hand on Felicity's knee before excusing himself to make a phone call. Sara was paralyzed, mid-pace. Felicity finally looked at her.

"It's not your fault," she told her girlfriend. "I just remember thinking that. I remember thinking that I knew you were coming." Sara set her jaw and gnashed her teeth.

"I'm so sorry," was all she could offer.

"It's not your fault," Felicity repeated. She scooted in the bed as far as the cords would allow and patted it for Sara to sit.

After debating for a moment, Sara slipped in beside her. She stretched her legs out over the covers beside Felicity.

"It might not look like it," Felicity whispered, "But I was kind of strong tonight." Her bandaged head found its way to Sara's shoulder. Sara kissed the top of her head and nodded in agreement.

"You always are," she insisted.

"But tonight, I was super strong," Felicity insisted. She opened her palm and showed Sara the slightly crumpled canary from earlier. "I had this in my fist that punched a mugger."

Silently Sara picked up the supple paper and went about trying to iron out the creases and straighten the top up as best she could.

"You're a symbol of strength," Felicity whispered. "For me and for everybody in this city. You made me hold on a few minutes longer."

Sara took a deep breath and continued to fiddle with the little yellow paper bird. Felicity became so mortal in this moment, so capable of being lost. Sara was terrified and worried and utterly lost. But in this moment, she knew that there was no where else she should or could or would or wanted to be.

"I was so scared," Sara finally said. "I thought... I don't know what I thought. But I just... I was so scared."

"I'm tougher than you give me credit for," Felicity insisted.

"Maybe," Sara nodded. "Tougher than me, that's for sure." She earned a tiny chuckle.

"Yes," Felicity said as Sara put the bird back in her hands. "Sunday at seven works for me." Sara laughed this time. It was done out of exhaustion and the overflow of emotions she generally was incapable of comprehending.

"I think I love you," Sara said, still laughing. For some reason it was the funniest thing to her in this moment. As much as she wanted to deny it, in this moment, she knew that she was in love. "I'm sorry. It's not funny. It's just.. You are the most terrifying future for me, and I wouldn't have it any other way. I just want you. And I'm scared. But Hell. I really think I love you."

Felicity moved her head and kissed Sara's shoulder. Sara smoothed her hair with her cheek and stopped laughing. It might have been a fit of hysteria. If Felicity was afraid, she would just cite stress and say she forgot it even happened. Maybe she could, if she tried hard enough. Felicity played with the wings of the poor, crumpled canary.

"Will you stay here with me, until I fall asleep?" she asked, scared and quiet like a little girl.

"I'm not going anywhere," Sara promised.

"Oliver is going to catch them right?" she asked, stilling her movements with the paper toy.

"Him or my dad will have them by the time you wake up," Sara decided. "No one is going to stop until they find them. And you don't have to worry. I'm not going anywhere. They'll have to get through Digg first, and then me."

"I'm not scared," Felicity adjusted her head and held Sara's hand.

"I know," Sara nodded. "I am."

"Don't be. I'll protect you," Felicity promised this time. Sara smiled big and wide even though she couldn't see it. Felicity did the same.

The bed was small for the both of them, but they made it work, not moving as much as they could. Sara was half off the edge, but she didn't complain. She kissed Felicity's hand and held her arm tightly. She saw Digg in the doorway. He gave her a small nod but didn't come back in. Oliver hadn't made an appearance yet.

"I think I might love you too," Felicity said. It was clear and precise and Sara heard it.

"Then never die," Sara sighed. "Or get hurt. Or scare me like this ever again."

"Sucks being on that side, huh?" Felicity lifted her head to see Sara's face. Sara just nodded. She kissed Felicity's forehead. It was the only apology she could think of that might matter.

"Point made, Smoak," she grumbled.

The monitors were quiet and the room was safe and calm.

"I don't want to sleep," Felicity whispered.

"It's okay," Sara promised. "I'll be here all night." She ran her thumb along Felicity's palm. "Just close your eyes."


	6. Chapter 6

**teensy tiny disclaimer: I am going on a little break for the next three-ish weeks. Life is just going to take over for a bit. I do have the story mapped out all the way past [censored] when [spoiler] enters and [censored] with [spoiler] after [censored], so about 5 more chapters in total. I don't know how much after that. Expect a barrage of writing after this semester is over. **

**I'd also like to take just another few sentences of your time to tell everyone who has reviewed and read, a big, big thank you. I'm glad you've enjoyed it and you've said such nice things. If you haven't reviewed I'm obviously not talking about you. But you can rectify that by reviewing.**

**Also! Check out my tumblr: coeurastronaute . tumblr . com. I'd love to help solidify this canon with one shots/drabbles there. **

**On to our story.  
****Previously, on _Pillar of Salt_...**

_**Our angry hero found herself learning that a brawny heart is as important as a brawny physique and one can be there for another in many different ways. Our tirelessly brave IT girl channeled her inner Canary, yet failed to prevent **__**(h**__**er own)**_ mugging after a fourteen hour day of work. It was not such a good day for her. And also fantasies about office sex...

* * *

_I want you close, I want you_  
_I won't treat you like you're typical._

It wasn't until the elevator stopped and Felicity walked down the hall and stood before the door that she felt nervous. It'd been a feeling growing in her gut for the entire day, though she'd been able to keep it at bay by distracting herself with her job. Now, however, it was impossible to not see the task at hand- it could not be put off any longer. She tried to keep her nerves hidden though, because she didn't want her girlfriend to worry and grow more nervous than she already was exhibiting unabashedly. It wasn't often that Felicity was able to see a rattled and preoccupied Sara, which made this whole experience a little easier. Felicity picked up the slack of being the brave one now.

Sara slipped her fingers between Felicity's as they stood in front of the door together. She hadn't even tried to hide her nervousness because it was an impossible feat. Felicity maintained a calm while Sara squeezed her hand and tried to keep her heart from racing. It was silly, she tried to tell herself. There was nothing to worry about. But that didn't help at all. This meant more than Sara wanted to realize.

There hadn't been one person Sara brought home to meet her father, at least not officially, and not in this capacity. This felt monumental, still. She wanted to feel silly for being anxious about something so mundane as a dinner when just the night before she'd taken down another drug dealer in the Glades. But here she was, still slightly Sara and afraid of the future and seriousness and commitment and her father's approval.

"I like you a lot and I hope that whatever embarrassing stories or pictures my dad has won't change your opinion of me," Sara turned just her head, body still rigid, to look at Felicity. It came out matter-of-factly and with a seriousness that made Felicity stifle her laugh. "And don't believe most of the things my sister says."

"Oh God, I didn't even think about pictures," Felicity smiled hopefully despite Sara's groan.

Shaking her head in regret already, Sara lifted a fist to knock on the door.

If only she had come up with a better excuse, they could have been back at Felicity's in hour one of a potentially very long naked movie night. Instead, she was tricked into it by her father and sister who worked through Felicity to assure them that she didn't have plans. It was maddening and Sara was still sore about it. The hours she did have free, she liked to spend in the quiet of Felicity's studio. It'd been enough that she wasn't there to stop her from getting attacked. She wasn't going to let that happen again.

It'd taken an entire bribe to get her to come. Felicity promised her wondrously delicious things after dinner back at her place, and it was enough to convince Sara of anything. Felicity could have asked her to amputate her arm, and she would have if the reward was anywhere near as wonderful as it sounded. That was going to get her through dinner, Sara decided. Those images of Felicity and that thing she did with her-

"There they are," my father greeted the two girls at the door. "Hi honey," he hugged and kissed his youngest daughter. "Felicity," he hugged as well. "Right on time."

"Hi, Dad," Sara greeted him, skirting past him into the apartment. She heard Felicity greeting him warmly behind her. "Hey," she hugged Laurel as she slung off her coat.

"Hey," her sister returned. "You ready for a night of family fun?" Sara just glared back at her, much to Laurel's enjoyment.

A second later, the sister hugged and welcomed Felicity before taking her coat and laying it over the railing. They exchanged pleasantries well enough, never actually talking despite their mutual acquaintances. Felicity stood across from Sara and smiled, trying to put her at ease. Officer Lance retreated in a rush to the kitchen again.

"It smells really good," Sara offered.

"Dad's been working in there since he got home," Laurel informed her. "Come on, let's sit while he finishes." Like a cruise director or marching band leader, Laurel led the way to the dining room. "Drinks?" Sara eyed her. "For you all," she clarified.

"I'll take wine if you have it," Felicity tried, finding her seat at the table.

"Sounds good," Sara seconded, sliding in across from her.

The three women settled into an easy conversation, alternating taking sips and laughing or asking questions. For Felicity, it was the first real chance to see Sara interact with her sister and family. It was eye opening and exciting. She liked the way they teased each other. She even liked the sense of sibling rivalry there. Laurel might never know that her sister was the one who saved her life a few times already, or that she woke up in the middle of the night unable to breathe, muscles tense and shaking, ready to attack something that couldn't be defeated by fists. Now, looking at Sara roll her eyes at something Laurel said, she seemed so human to Felicity, that she, too, almost couldn't believe the night terrors that left the blonde a sweat-through trembling mess some nights they spent together.

Laurel made conversation with Felicity, trying to get to know her for her sister. It was a nice gesture that Sara noticed and sat back in her chair, smiling as Felicity answered in her smart and humble way. To say that it had been a surprise to Laurel whens he found out about Felicity was an understatement. Sara specifically remembered her shocked eyes and slack jaw and speechlessness for a full few minutes. But it passed and Laurel felt happy for her sister, because for the first times since her miraculous return, Sara felt happy. To her sister, she appeared almost happier than before she even disappeared in the first place.

There had been a history of terrible choices in boyfriends and friends that felt as if it evaporated for Sara at the table. Laurel usually brought the decent guy home that impressed her father. She was the lawyer, the established one. Sara was the college drop out who made bad decisions and ran away on a boat. But in presenting Felicity, there was a feeling of accomplishment that surpassed pretty much any other feeling Sara felt. Felicity carried herself well, never fully betraying her nervousness for very long. She had a degree and parents who were a teacher and a mail man, she had a brother who was trouble, but was trying. She was all-American and earned everything she had. It made Sara see her in a new light again. Felicity was an impressive, kind, compassionate, humble, unassuming human being, and for some reason she liked Sara. That made Sara feel a bit better herself.

"He didn't," Laurel leaned forward, serious and eager to hear the rest of the story Felicity was telling.

"Yes! This guy actually tries to ask me to remove corporate site blockers," Felicity grinned. "Or what he really meant... porn." She blushed slightly at the admission.

"Oh God," Laurel made a face and laughed. Sara joined in, not catching the entire story, but still catching the giggles.

"Okay, so here we have it," Officer Lance entered with mitted hands struggling with a plate full of spaghetti.

"It looks great, Dad," Sara offered, pouring him a glass of wine.

The father sat at the head of the table and took a deep breath as the girls dug in to the plate of pasta. Sara filled Felicity's glass again and smiled in a way that reminded of his daughter a long time ago. But it was a new smile. She grinned confidently and stole an extra look at the young Ms. Smoak. After seeing his daughter in the hospital the night of the mugging, the father noticed a difference in her when he saw her. Over the past month, he saw more glimpses of a different Sara, not necessarily the old one that he remembered as carefree and foolhardy, but one that was confidently content and caring, still a leaf in the wind, free and wild, but somehow she was rooted now. Quentin knew who he had to thank for it, though he would never know how.

"This looks amazing," Felicity offered, smiling at the doting father.

"Thank you, thank you," he bowed his head slightly. "I am a man of few talents, but luckily spaghetti is one of them."

The dinner conversation flowed easily as the wine flowed easier. Sara abstained, and Felicity got a giggle. But she held up under the Officer's questions, and she proved her worth a few times over already. For the father, this dinner was simply a way to acknowledge and support his youngest daughter in ways that he was afraid he'd failed her once upon a time. He could still look at her and see the deep, deep pain inflicted over the years she was gone that he would never understand or fully realize. But he had to show her that he could be part of her life now, and that she could have one at all. He knew this dinner wasn't a way she liked to spend her time, and that she purposefully kept herself removed from connections, but with her relationship with Felicity, his daughter had begun to become available.

Laurel noticed the soft and pleasant smile her father kept to himself as he watched Sara gesture during a story. She found herself so confused by the woman before her, so suddenly back from the dead. Occasionally she would see a flash in her sister's eyes that looked like pure fury and murder. And now, she was sitting there, pointing at her father and making him laugh so hard he had to cover his face. For Laurel, those years she was missing were sealed away like a great mystery in another language- worse yet, a dead language. All she wanted to know was what happened to her baby sister, but she was afraid of the answers.

"Ugh, Dad, no," Sara moaned, covering her eyes as he hurried out of his seat towards the bookshelf.

"She asked," he defended himself.

"She'll be fine," Felicity spoke for her tortured girlfriend. "She's a baby."

"Daddy's little princess syndrome," Laurel taunted her. Sara stuck out her tongue.

The plates had been emptied and the conversation genial and cull of mirth. Now the embarrassment crept in to capture Sara in this rite of passage.

"Oh. My." Felicity punctuated and covered her mouth when Officer Lance returned with three framed pictures. "How have I never seen these?" she asked no one in particular. Sara burrowed further into her palms.

"I like this one," her father explained, leaning over Felicity's shoulders.

Sara ignored them as they talked to each other. She didn't hate the pictures so much for the reasons they thought she did. She wasn't too embarrassed by herself as a child. She simply missed the innocence. The girl in those pictures, she was dead. For Sara, it was as if she'd never existed at all.

Her father sat back down while Felicity gazed at the photos, handing them to Laurel as she finished.

"Aw, look at this," Felicity cooed, holding up the last one of Sara in her Rockets hat in front of the stadium with her eyes closed from smiling so big. "You still look like this sometimes. A goof."

"I think you were, what?" Lance asked, musing over it. "Maybe eight?"

"Something like that," Sara nodded. "You let me ditch school to go with you to see them play Central."

"And she got so sick," the father explained to Felicity who had become engrossed. "She ate about three pounds of cotton candy. Puked blue the whole way home." Felicity looked surprised at her girlfriend and laughed.

"He kept asking me if I wanted more," Sara shrugged, putting the picture down. "Of course I did."

Though the plates were empty, the family sat at the table, laughing and talking. Even Sara lost her nervousness and allowed herself to be eased into the relative happiness that seemed to stem from the dinner. Time passed easily, at least much easier than Sara had expected.

Felicity's phone rang in her bag as Laurel was explaining the ways in which the city was debating how to handle the sudden outbreak of a second vigilante that no one really knew about, this Black Canary who seemed to focus on the Glades and set a record for number of rapists and offenders collected. Felicity excused herself as Sara shared a look with her father.

"It just doesn't make sense," Laurel sighed, sitting back in her chair. "We had a string of dead bodies and now it seems like she kills only a few."

"Maybe those ones say the wrong thing," Sara said, sipping the last bit of her glass. She smirked and wiped her mouth to cover it.

"Right," Laurel laughed. "Can you imagine someone who decides if someone lives or dies because she doesn't like what she hears?"

"These are criminals, Laurel," Sara shook her head. "Criminals against women."

"Don't you think those women deserve their own justice?" her sister explained.

"Well, if the Arrow straightened out," Officer Lance shrugged, nonchalantly. "I'm sure this new one will find her way."

"Didn't she save your life?" Sara turned to Laurel.

"I don't have a problem with her ways," Laurel shrugged. "I'm perfectly fine with her methods for violent offenders. But downtown, a lot of people are nervous."

"Hey, Sara, sorry-" Felicity stuck her head out from the kitchen, afraid to interrupt. "I umm, there are apparently some contracts," she lied, giving Sara the please-understand-what-I'm-saying eyes. "Apparently a huge acquisition is set to fall apart," Felicity tried to explain, standing in the dining room awkwardly. "I'm so sorry, Officer Lance, but I have to go to the office."

The entire time she spoke, Felicity looked at Sara and tried to convey that they needed to go- now.

"Are you sure it can't keep until morning?" he asked. She smiled and nodded.

"Unfortunately the markets are open in Asia, and if I don't get this..." she shook her head.

"Yeah, Dad," Sara stood, putting her napkin on the table. "These are billions of dollars," Sara insisted. "We should head out." Sara was already up and kissing the side of his head. "Laurel, I will see you," she offered a wave as she grabbed her coat.

"Thank you again," Felicity said as she hurried to put on her coat. "This was so nice and wonderful." Sara was already at the door, but Felicity waited until the officer stood up and hugged her. "I'm so sorry again. I should have had them done."

"Are you sure Oliver can't handle it?" Laurel asked, hugging the frazzled girl.

"You have met him, right?" Felicity asked. Laurel thought about it and nodded with a smile.

"You're right," she agreed. "We'll have to do this again."

"Definitely," Felicity smiled. "I'm sorry again."

"It's no problem," they both assured her. Anxiously Sara was waiting in the doorway, watching the niceties. It'd only been a few minutes since the phone call but she already felt as if she were missing something.

"Okay, love you guys," Sara offered, pulling Felicity's hand.

"Be careful," her father called as the door closed. A few seconds later he was left looking at Laurel and shrugging. All-in-all, it'd been a wildly successful family night, and it gave him just a little bit of hope, that one day a dinner wouldn't get interrupted by whatever disaster was waiting his daughter. Felicity was a good thing for his youngest, and tonight he got to see it with his own eyes. The fact that the men who mugged Ms. Smoak were still alive in prison and his daughter hadn't done what he imagined she wanted over a month ago, was a step in the right direction to getting his little girl back.

He sat at the table and finished his glass of wine while Laurel started to take the dishes to the kitchen. There was an accomplished smile of a father who feels a little better about the future for his children on his lips- smug and relieved.

* * *

"It was Oliver," Felicity explained as Sara sprinted towards the elevator. "He said it was important. He said he saw Slade, and you would know what that meant-"

Sara's heart stopped for a few seconds at the name. The muscles of her jaw flexed so hard she thought she'd break her teeth right there. But after those few seconds, she become innately afraid and worried. Nothing good was coming. She had to prepare.

"You're going to go to your place," Sara thought out-loud quickly as the elevator descended. "You're going to wait there until I come for you. You're not going to open the door. You're going to open the small safe that I hid in the top of your hall closet." As she explained, she pulled on her gloves and looked purposefully at Felicity. The change in her demeanor confused Felicity. "Are you paying attention?" Sara asked. She was so down to business, Felicity jumped a bit. "The code is 2-4-8-9. You will load the gun and stay in your living room."

"What's happening?" Felicity asked dumbly, following the sprinting girl into the night. Sara waved a taxi down.

"You're going to do everything I told you, right?" Sara asked, turning back to her as the car slowed. Felicity nodded because it was all she could do. "What was the safe combination?"

"2-4-8-9," Felicity repeated. "Sara, what's-"

"I will send Digg," Sara ignored the question again as she opened the door of the taxi for her girlfriend. "You remember what I told you?"

"Yes, but-"

Sara kissed Felicity, ignoring the words attempting to come out. It was rushed and needy.

"It'll be okay," she promised as she tried to catch her breath. "I promise."

Before Felicity could register what was happening, the taxi door was closed and she was left dazed and watching Sara spring down the street. It took her a few minutes and the cabbie asking her multiple times where she was heading for Felicity to comprehend the whirlwind that had just happened.

She gave her address and sat back in the seat, breathless and suddenly anxious.

* * *

Once again, Sara found herself standing in front of a door, unable to make herself knock. Her body was exhausted and worn, her heart and soul were weak and weary. She just swallowed and continued to stare at the door in the quiet hallway of Felicity's apartment. On the other side of the door was a girl who Sara had put at risk, a girl who it would kill Sara to have anything happen to at all.

Gently and soundlessly she rested her head on her girlfriend's front door and pressed her palms against the wood there. She felt like she was bowing to prayer on the holy sight. She hoped it would absolve her.

The past few hours had been as close to seeing ghosts as Sara ever thought she'd be. It was as close to certain death as she could ever remember being. And for a moment, with Slade's hand around her throat, she felt the need to struggle fade and she resigned herself to it. But Felicity popped into her head...

Slowly she shook her head against the door, letting it lull, letting the tired and the angry fade from her muscles. Her fingertips dug into the wood and she gave herself one more moment of solitude before giving in to her selfishness. Though she knew she could do nothing better for Felicity than to disappear from her life forever, she knew that this was impossible.

"Felicity, it's me," she said, tapping just enough for it to be heard. "It's okay. You can open up."

Within a second, the bolts were thrown and the door was opened a crack, and then quickly Sara was engulfed in Felicity's arms. Her girlfriend wrapped her arms around her neck, and Sara leaned against the door once it was closed, allowing herself to be engulfed and adored. Felicity still had the gun in her hand, but she didn't care. She hugged Sara tightly, the fear and the concern making her muscles grip harder than she thought possible. She felt as if she were clinging to smoke.

Once the initial shock of what was happening ebbed and Felicity found herself holding a gun in her own apartment, afraid to move, she started to drive herself crazy. If Sara was this worried, what could be happening? What could make her feel like this? What spooked her? For a while she was convinced that she would never see Sara again. So she sat in the quiet of her apartment, jumping with the click of the radiator and every siren screaming in the street for the past few hours. Each muscle fiber felt poised and alert, and now, to let them stand down felt exhaustive.

"Are you alright?" Felicity asked, finally pulling back to appraise Sara. Her eyes were tired and her body looked defeated, but there was no obvious bruises. "Oh my God," Felicity saw the fingerprints around her neck. She tilted Sara's chin and felt her body chill at the sight. "What happened to you?" Sara swallowed despite the hurt that came with that action.

"I'm alright," Sara nodded, pulling her chin away from Felicity's appraising hold. "Is that-?" she asked, holding Felicity's wrist. "Fuck's sake," she scolded. "Give me that." Quickly she snatched the gun and took a step away from the door.

Felicity felt herself being pushed away and snapped at and knew that whatever had happened had been detrimental.

"You told me to get it!" she defended herself. "I don't even know why, but I did." Sara didn't respond. She just unloaded the gun and put it back in the safe, all the while making a mental not to take Felicity to a range and show her proper tools to help herself.

Once again the two found themselves separated by years and miles and walls and the living room. Felicity, firmly rooted near the door, crossed her arms around herself, hoping it would help her keep it together. Sara, kicking her feet and altogether antsy, ran her hand along her neck and looked at the tip of her shoe. It felt unfamiliar to both as they had found themselves spoiled by a closeness and an ability to overcome whatever came before them.

After one large breath, Felicity took the first step. A second later she took another and another until she was in front of her girlfriend. Sara kept looking at the ground.

"What do you need?" Felicity asked quietly. Sara shook her head but didn't look up. She knew that if she did, she would find Felicity's eyes, and those would kill her without a doubt. So she just shook her head weakly. She wasn't even sure what she needed.

Gently Felicity hugged her once again. She kissed her forehead and ran her nose along Sara's nose. They both kept their eyes closed and just breathed. Felicity was out of her element. She'd never seen a defeated Sara. She held her neck and rooted her fingers in the hair at the base of her neck, holding tightly, avoiding the bruises. Sara's arms stayed at her sides, unable to be lifted.

"I've done things," Sara swallowed. She chewed the inside of her lip.

"I don't care," Felicity whispered, fingertips ghosting across the soft skin of Sara's neck and jaw. Her palms rested on Sara's shoulders, and then her chest, thumbs toying with the protrusions of her collar bones.

"I care," she sniffled. She tried to duck her head again. Felicity just kissed her cheeks and traced the base of her neck with her thumbs. The weight of her palms on Sara's chest felt good, it felt important. Sara needed it. "We weren't alone on the Island." Felicity felt Sara inhale. "We had to make choices. I never thought..." Sara shook her head. Felicity grabbed her again, long arms winding their way around her shoulders.

Sara dug her nose in Felicity's shoulder and breathed to calm her throbbing heart. Her hands finally worked and held Felicity there, not wanting her to run.

"Slade was there, we thought he was... we gave him an experimental treatment to keep him alive after he was burned," Sara explained, burying her head under Felicity's chin. She wanted to burrow and disappear. "He's going to try to cause me as much suffering as I caused him."

"We will figure it out," Felicity promised.

Sara shook her head.

"He threw Oliver and me around like rag dolls," Sara explained. "We can't... I don't know what to do."

Finally, Sara met Felicity's eyes. Felicity saw hopelessness there.

"We will figure it out," she promised again.

"I couldn't even stop you from being mugged," Sara shook her head and extricated herself from Felicity's arms, shaking her head and running her hands through her hair. "I don't know what to do."

"We'll figure it out," Felicity said again as Sara paced.

"Stop saying that!" Sara yelled. "Stop it! We won't!" Felicity jumped at the outburst. Sara resumed her pacing, this time in the kitchen. "I caused this," she ranted, raising her voice. "If I had just not let Ollie choose," she shook her head. Felicity watched the tense shoulders and angry hands. Sara was incapable of stillness. "I would have never put you in this position. I would have never..."

"We'll figur-"

"STOP!" Sara yelled again, neck bulging. Felicity shrunk.

"What's the alternative?" Felicity yelled back. "Huh? I can yell too! Stop being an asshole! I'm not going anywhere!"

They seethed at each other in their separate spaces. Both prides were wounded, both heads were exhausted, both hearts were thrashing.

"You think this is easy for me?" Felicity couldn't help herself. She was upset and she was mad and she had every right to be. "To want you so much? To be afraid? To not care. I'm afraid of losing you, not of getting hurt. You selfish, stupid jerk!" Felicity set her jaw and bit at her lip. "I'm afraid of losing you, and I've given up on all other consequences. That's my choices. I chose that. I chose you! I choose you, thick and thin."

Sara wasn't sure what made her do it. It was the adrenaline, she wanted to say. But it wasn't. She kissed Felicity as hard as she could, feeling Felicity's tenseness and anger swelling between them.

"I don't know what else you need from me," Felicity pulled away, shaking her head.

Sara just kissed her again until they both couldn't catch their breath, and then she kept kissing her. She kissed Felicity until she felt her girlfriend's fists unclench from her shirt, until her lips weren't rigid and flexed, until her body moved and relaxed and forgot to be so mad at her. It was all she could do, because she was in it, and there was nothing left to do, nothing left to yell about. Felicity stuck around, and she was right.

Breathing heavily, Sara found their roles reversed from earlier. Her hands pressed on Felicity's chest, palms flat and thumbs on the thin bone of her collar. Each breath stuttered and kicked in her chest. Sara felt her breathing mimicking hers, steadying together as she watched her hands rise and fall.

"What other options are there?" Felicity whispered. "We figure it out. That's what we do."

"We survive," Sara nodded softly.

"We survive," Felicity repeated. "Together."

They were both reeling and exhausted, but neither moved from the cocoon they concocted in the middle of the kitchen. Each had their eyes closed, hands rooted somewhere on the other, bodies close and hovering. Neither was sure of what it all meant, or what was coming next, but for this moment, that didn't matter.

* * *

**Next time on _Pillar of Salt_. **

_Did we think it was the last we've seen of our friends at the League of Assassins? How cute is too cute? How does Sara have time to put the black make-up around her eyes when she puts on the mask? How do they get the bar down from the top of the salmon ladder? Are our heroes ready to say those three words? Most importantly, will there be more sex? _

_yes._


	7. Chapter 7

_And I won't let them suck you in_  
_My love, my love, my love, my love._

"Get back in here," Sara grumbled, pulling on the wiggling body of her girlfriend. It was still dark in the apartment, but in the light sneaking through the window, Sara resisted the impending morning, and wanted her girlfriend to protest it, too. She growled and tugged with half-lidded eyes at the warm body beside her.

The warmth of the sheets made it nearly impossible for Felicity to combat the sleepy, needy arms that wrapped around her again. She took a deep breath and gave herself one second. It was the smell of hot shower in winter, foggy mirrors and soap, clean simple soap still stuck to Sara's skin, that made Felicity feel safe and perfectly content. There was also laundry, a detergent different than her own, and beneath it all, a bit of Sara - a bit of mint and a flower, a soft flower that wasn't flowery... honeysuckle, Felicity decided as she breathed in one last time. Honeysuckle roasting in the sun. That was Sara to her. And she craved it more and more.

Sara had permeated Felicity's bed and apartment. The occasional night that she spent with Felicity made it hard for the owner of the bed to want to change the sheets. It helped on days that the crime fighter was gone, to roll over onto what had become her pillow, and smell her there. It made Felicity sleep a bit better, and worry a bit harder. From the stray piece of clothing 'forgotten' or borrowed, to the toothbrush in the bathroom and the special tea that tasted like dirt in Felicity's opinion, bits of Sara stuck around the apartment.

"I have to go," Felicity insisted, trying to slither out of her girlfriend's arms. Sara kept her eyes closed and wrapped her arms around the girl a bit, her nose in her shoulder, inhaling the sweet smell of her girlfriend's skin - something sweet and lovely, the last bits of her perfume from the day before, an expensive little bottle that sat on her dresser and was a gift from her mother. Sara stole some on days she wouldn't see Felicity, dabbing just a smidge on her wrist that she would convince herself she could still smell hours and hours later. Now it was here, and faintly on the soft skin of Felicity's shoulder blade, making it even better for some reason.

"No you don't," Sara insisted, lips still half-sleeping and still trying to wage a protest in the form of sloppy kisses on whatever they could reach. She was rewarded with a growl and sigh and convinced she'd won.

"I do..." Felicity tried again.

The past few weeks had been a miracle. Felicity knew that and savoured these small, quiet moments. Sara had been less and less busy with her 'hobby,' as Felicity liked to call it, which in turn meant that Felicity was less busy with hers. Gradually, days crawled along and Slade was forgotten and never explained, though Felicity did her own digging and gathering of intelligence since the two island castaways were quite mum on the subject. It didn't interfere with Sara and Felicity, though. After a successful first official date that ended in the girls wrapped in a sheet somehow on Felicity's floor, lacking clothes and awfully satisfied, and after being remarkably wooed a few more times, Felicity allowed herself to feel more and more comfortable with the hero. And Sara, in a reluctant and surprisingly easy twist, found herself settling back into daily life and her new relationship much better than she thought she'd be capable.

When Sara had spoken about being burned alive by hate, she hadn't been hyperbolic. That was how she felt for years, unsure of what it meant, unsure of how to continue and more unsure of how not to continue. But now, there really was sprouts of green emerging like a forest after the fire and she chose to embrace it and allow herself it, because that was what it meant to be alive. And for the moment, she was. Sometimes, she even forgot to be angry at all.

If Sara had her way, she'd be asleep in Felicity's bed every night. If Felicity had her way she'd have the same. But both of them silently agreed to an unstated truce that for some reason meant that Sara went to her own bed at her father's place some nights, and Felicity found herself alone in hers. It was the last semblance of resisting commitment that both of them didn't want to give up just yet. Things worked this way, and with this they didn't have to have talks or define things or make things official because they lived in a world of grey and high stakes, and this, whatever they were doing, for both of them, was easy and perfect and theirs. It was their safe zone, and both refused to disrupt it with real world questions. This was the only thing that went smoothly for both of the women, and they were in no hurry to ruffle any feathers. They knew that what they had was simple and good and genuine, and it was enough.

"Stay," Sara yawned, kissing as much neck as her lips could reach. Inadvertently, Felicity shifted and her neck stretched despite herself.

"Go back to sleep," Felicity whispered, disentangling herself. "It's only five, and I know you got in just a few hours ago." Sara nodded, unable to stay awake and fight or insist any longer. She settled back into the bed, arm falling into the empty space where Felicity had just been.

Felicity looked back in the bed and saw the face of an assassin already back in her sleeping dreams. She allowed herself just a moment to look at her before the day would start and it would get loud and people would ask her to do things and she couldn't imagine being happier than she was waking up with Sara. It was rare for Felicity to have this unguarded glimpse at an unassuming girl. Hair messy and shoulders moving with every slow and steady breath, Sara reminded her of a bit of peacefulness that seemed nonexistent when she was awake. No matter what was happening, Sara constantly maintained a confident, cocky air that masked any true feelings. She wasn't unfeeling and she wasn't cold. She was stoic and strong and so many more things that Felicity wished she could be as well. But there was no hiding in her sleep. Now, Sara was just Sara, curled up and gripping the sheets, enjoyer of being the little spoon.

It made Felicity grin to herself a bit.

Sometimes her girlfriend's nighttime activities felt very far removed from the person Felicity thought she knew knew. It was almost as if the were two different people, and her ability to switch between them sometimes gave Felicity whiplash. Felicity hadn't lied when she told Sara that none of it mattered, though sometimes she thought about it and hypothesized about what it could be. It didn't matter that Sara had done things in her life that she regretted and that haunted her and made her wake up gasping and afraid from her sleep sometimes. It didn't matter that Sara was covered in scars that she refused to really talk about most of the time. It didn't matter that she was ashamed of who she'd become because Felicity had somehow set out to convince her that it wasn't shameful and that she was still a person. What mattered was the sleepy smile Sara had in the morning, and the collection of canaries that were now strung up in Felicity's window and added to regularly. What mattered for Felicity was Sara's dislike of doing dishes and daily updates in the form of rants on the Rockets and the books Sarah left all over the apartment and frustrated Felicity to no end. What mattered was the way she kissed Felicity every chance she got, and to Felicity it felt as if she was trying to tell her things, confess, hope, beg, disappear, appear - all of it at once, and it knocked Felicity over.

There were two Sara's, and sometimes, Felicity was afraid she would never figure out which one was the real one, or at least the realest one. More than that, she was terrified of herself because Felicity found herself somehow falling in love with parts of both. They hadn't spoken of love since the hospital, and both were alright with it. It just sat there in the room, oddly enough not making them anxious, but putting them at rest because it was there and more special unspoken and made real.

With a sigh she watched Sara turn over and kick at the sheets a bit before giving up trying to figure out anything in the dark and crept into the bathroom to get ready for work, happier than she thought she would be, in a way that she never thought of, because this was all new and she'd never saw it coming.

* * *

It was well into Felicity's lunch hour that she got a text from the obnoxiously sleepy Sara. She rolled her eyes and shook her head before putting her phone down and resuming her typing on the computer, happy that the vigilante had gotten a much deserved rest.

It'd been a ridiculous clamour of thunder that woken Sara, or else she would still have been sleeping well into the late afternoon. It took her a few moments to realize where she was and that the bed was awfully empty. She slept so good she felt like a new person, almost. The clouds and rainstorm outside betrayed how late the time really was and the room was not fully lit and awfully calm. Grumbling and stretching, Sara sent a text quickly and sat up in bed.

Sometimes she hated silence, like the kind that sat in an empty apartment in the middle of the day. It made her lonely and as much as she hid it, she hated that feeling. Sara liked waking up with Felicity. She actually liked a lot of things lately. Like family dinners every other week. And working a normal job with set hours. And the feeling of spring in every rain storm. And the city flourishing for good reasons. And Felicity, for making her realize all of these things.

On the edge of the bed she swung her feet onto the cold floor and rolled her shoulders, stretching her arm a bit. She always slept better in Felicity's bed. It was the softness of her sheets and probably her warmth and kisses and junk. Really it was a safeness. Sara felt safer, sleeping here. She felt like herself. Like who she could have been if only she'd not gotten on the boat. It was calm and new and wonderfully it felt like home.

_Take the trash out when you leave? _her phone buzzed as Sara was about to stand.

_Yes, dear, _she responded with a smile to herself.

_You know the Rockets won last night?_ again her phone sounded and Sara again decided to sit in bed and prolong the inevitable.

_Thanks, ESPN. com._

_You give me the sweetest nicknames_, Felicity quipped.

_All done with love_, Sara promised. _Now get back to work so you can buy me pretty things._

_I never saw myself as a sugar mama.__ There's muffins in the pantry._

_Thank you, beautiful. _

As Sara stood and put her phone down she knew that Felicity would be blushing and slightly fidgeting as she read the message. Sometimes Sarah found herself trying to be chivalrous and exceeding flirty just to get the awkward, jittery reaction from Felicity. It was practically a sport and made the tech genius a bit more endearing, if that were possible.

Sara slid on her old sweatpants that had become a staple in Felicity's laundry, never quite making it back to Sara's house and made her way into the kitchen in search of those muffins.

"You're losing your touch," a voice made her body turn to stone as she reached to open the pantry. So many thoughts ran through her head that she couldn't think of anything.

"Of course it's you," Sara closed the cabinet and shook her head with a smirk. Her movements were slow and deliberate so as not to excited the intrusive guest. "The one-who-calls." She allowed herself a small chuckle as she turned to find him sitting on the sofa.

"It's time," he said after a moment, standing and straightening himself. All business.

"How long?"

"It is done when it is done," he said stiffly.

"What am I doing?"

"Whatever needs to be done."

"It must be messy if you don't want to dirty those clean hands of yours," Sara snarked.

"Thanks to your disobedience, I don't have to," he replied.

"I'm done after this, Bilal," she crossed her arms and locked her jaw. "If I see you or Ra's or Nyssa or any one from the League, I will kill them."

The tall, slender man with dark rimmed eyes chuckled and shook his head. He had never been cruel to Sara. He was always gracious and kind and most importantly, he was quiet and required nothing from her. He was never a teacher or an instructor or a mentor. He was simply there. He stroked the side of his long chin thoughtfully. He was not a bad man; he was a religious man. Not in the sense of church every day or prayers, but in the kind of religion that came in believing in something so much it became a life's work. It wasn't faith because it wasn't up for debate. It was mechanical.

"Unlike you, we honour our word," he nodded thoughtfully, still smiling from Sara's threat. His words rang quiet in the apartment. "I will see you tonight." With no wasted movements he moved toward the door. Sara was inundated with anger. She wanted to kill him. She wanted to fight. But she was a slave and she knew it. "Don't make me look for you."

"You won't hurt her," Sara said, standing up straighter than she had been. Bilal turned just slightly at the door. She could feel her shoulders tense, pulling tightly at the bones.

"I have no reason to harm the girl," he said simply. "You are going to do this and we will be nothing but a dream to you." He nodded decidedly. Sara wasn't sure if he meant to give her hope, but he did. She knew he hadn't meant to put her at ease, but he was religious, and religious men are easy to understand. They have a code or a law or a rigorous set of boundaries that could not be crossed because it would upset their fragile belief system. He did his devotionals and he kept his head down to find a personal peace. Sara envied it, but in this moment she was more thankful. He was not vindictive or vengeful. His words were face-valued only.

"Is it bad?" Sara asked quickly as he opened the door. Again he paused, fingers lingering on the door knob. She watched him think. "To need me... it must be... I can't imagine..."

"It will test us all," he whispered, swallowing forcefully. He averted his eyes for a moment, still thinking, still searching for something. Sara felt her fingers balling into fists and her fingernails possibly cutting into her own palm. "You cannot be free of your burdens or past until they burn you alive, and you walk out of the flames fresh-skinned and tender again." He waited a moment, hearing his own words out loud as opposed to in his head, and gently he closed the door behind himself.

Sara found herself in the quiet once again. It bothered her more than before.

* * *

Felicity didn't even get up when Sara came sluggishly into the apartment, dropped her bag and jacket on the floor beside the door and slumped onto the couch. Instead she just watched it with an amused smirk and flipped the page of the magazine on her tablet.

"Long day?" Felicity asked, trying to joke with the tired looking girl at the end of the couch. Instead, Sara leaned her head back with her eyes closed and nodded. "I didn't think I'd see you tonight. I would have put on my sexy pyjamas." That earned a chuckle and little else from the unmoving girl. After a moment, Felicity set her tablet down on the coffee table and sat quietly with Sara, watching her breathe, almost convincing herself that she had fallen asleep.

"By sexy pyjamas..." Sara lulled her head to the side to look at Felicity with a grin. "You mean ones I haven't seen yet?"

"I meant your Rockets shirt and nothing else," Felicity smirked back, settling deeper into the couch. The television spoke to itself while the girls simply looked at each other. Sara sighed, shook her head, and stared at the ceiling again. Felicity felt victorious.

It wasn't unusual for Sara to get locked in her own head, and Felicity had gotten better at being quiet and resisting the urge to try to make her talk. But that was all she wanted to do - to know what was wrong and how she could help and if she could help. But with Sara, Felicity knew she had to do things differently. She had to take care of her and the rest would follow. This meant letting her sulk with her bruised face and stitched up wounds some nights, and sometimes just making her a little plate of dinner on others. In due time, Sara always eventually opened up to some degree. First she needed mending.

So Felicity let her sit at the end of the couch and be exhausted to the end of every muscle fibre, and watched the late night show that was on by default for noise. An entire segment passed before Sara sat up slightly, rolled her shoulders, and crawled her way to Felicity, laying her body flush with her girlfriends. Felicity felt Sara's arms snake around her waist and the weight of her head on her sternum. But she didn't move for fear of spooking the scared animal.

"It was a long day," Sara finally concluded after a few moments and commercials. "I'm exhausted."

"I know," Felicity nodded. Tentatively she ran her fingers along Sara's temple, and if it were possible, felt the last bit of Sara's tense muscles relax. Slowly, purposefully, she raked her fingers through Sara's hair, softly rubbing and petting.

"No," Sara shook her head slightly, rubbing her cheek against Felicity's shirt. "I mean I'm really, truly, completely exhausted."

"You're allowed to be," Felicity promised quietly, fingers continuing their slow, steady work, tracing and tucking hair behind the top of Sara's ear.

In that moment, Sara wanted nothing more than to tell Felicity that she had to go away, that she didn't know when she'd be back... to tell her the things she would have to do, but she grew scared at the last point, enough so to negate the urge to speak at all. Instead she bit her lip so hard she could taste the coppery, salty sensation of blood on the tip of her tongue.

Felicity turned her head and watched the television without really seeing it. This moment was part of the Sara that she was falling in love with, though she was afraid to admit it, and this moment made her long for more moments, selfishly. She was sure that she would never get enough of this.

"I think I'm happy," Felicity mused aloud. Her fingers stalled for a few beats before tentatively resuming her soft stroking of Sara's hair.

"Yeah?" Sara asked, not moving her body at all. Felicity stared at the television without seeing it.

"Yeah," she agreed with a distant smile. "You make me really happy. My life has been amazingly better since you came back to life." Sara was quiet as each word stabbed at her chest.

"I aim to please," she sighed, trying to make Felicity laugh. She closed her eyes and focused on the fingers rubbing her hair.

"I think I'm falling in love with you," Felicity whispered. She turned a bit to watch her fingers trail through the long blonde strands. She curled bits of it around her own fingers.

"Can we just sit here?" Sara asked quietly. "I like it here."

"As long as you'd like," Felicity returned.

Sara adjusted slightly, hugging her hips and rubbing her cheek against Felicity's shirt, nuzzling into her as much as she could. The television was in a different world. She wasn't sure how long it'd been since anyone spoke, but Sara felt tears running down one side of her face and soak a bit of Felicity's shirt. She didn't care. She just maintained the quiet and stillness and felt the tears, foreign and treacherous, fall with every soothing graze of Felicity's fingers.

"I don't think I know how to be this happy," Sara whispered.

"Shouldn't be too hard to learn," Felicity chuckled.

Sara bit the inside of her cheeks to shreds and cursed her eyes for betraying her.

* * *

Sara left another small origami canary on the pillow, softly situating it where she had just laid, trying to remember every sensation and feeling them slip away while she was still in the room. She had kept her eyes closed for hours listening to Felicity sleep, the creaking of the apartment building, the cars kicking up rain from the slick streets, sirens in the distance across town, the soft drumming of little raindrop fingers on the glass of the window - every second, Sara tried to memorize but found herself forgetting the second she focused on them.

She stood there, staring at the little bird and the body beside it, allowing herself one extra minute of watching Felicity's back rise and fall in a steady and calm rhythm. The sheet hung low on her hips, and Sara wanted desperately to touch her long spine once again, to kiss her way across it and push her cheek against her spine and her ear against her rib cage and listen to the whooshing of her lungs and the steady, rhythmic and calming metronome of a heartbeat. Some nights, it was all that kept her from losing her mind. Most nights, it kept the nightmares away. Every night, it made Sara feel things, the little sprouts of green, shooting up inside of her, filling her with a lush, green forest, bigger and thicker and more vibrant than before. She wanted to hate Felicity for making her feel needy and incomplete and so damn afraid. But she couldn't.

Instead she swallowed and took one last deep breath before creeping out the door, still very much in love with this girl, and suddenly very much afraid of never having it back one day.


	8. Chapter 8

_Don't you ever leave-_  
_that is what you said to me._  
_Do you know what that can do_  
_to someone like me?_

Three words. That was all she left. Three words. No more. No less.

Felicity memorized them. She even memorized the way they were written, the curls and dots and crosses. She found herself trying to discern motive and what they meant on every level, like a sophomore in a senior-level Shakespeare class. But no matter how long she stared and traced the precise edges of the folded wings and beak and read the words like a chant, Felicity was only left heartbroken and confused, alone and worried, angry and scared. They didn't tell her anything.

Three lousy words.

The only ironic solace that Felicity could find was that it wasn't just her. Everyone was confused about the disappearance, and even after nearly a month, no one had any idea why or where Sara disappeared to, or at least no more than what Oliver had explained.

For a week after finding the canary waiting in her bed, Felicity oscillated between being irate on the very of breaking things to so sad she thought she'd never stop as time kept marching forward, she found herself more perplexed than anything. It was only when she agreed to have coffee with Officer Lance that she realized she had to get outside of her own head and see that there was a whole network of people experiencing the same things.

It humbled her. It left her more confused.

She just told me that she had to go, Oliver explained. That was all he knew. It was League business. The worst of it was that everyone looked to Felicity as if she would know something more than them. Officer Lance, with his worried eyes and angry fear, asking if she knew anything or when she'd be back. Laurel, stoic and strong, trying to figure it out and being more out of the loop than anyone else. All Felicity could say that she knew Sara would return. She knew that much. More than anything, she knew that she was now part of this world, irrevocably linked to it. Sara was who she wanted.

"You really shouldn't be here this late," a voice made Felicity jump and grip the paper bird in her hand a bit tighter. It wasn't out of the ordinary now for her to get lost in thought and oblivious to the world around her. Sometimes Oliver would see her staring into space when she was supposed to be working on something at her desk. Other times, she was unaware that anyone was speaking to her, she just didn't hear or care to respond. The constant, Smoak rambling had dried up it seemed.

"Here or home, what's the point? I can't sleep anywhere," Felicity sighed, adjusting her chair and sitting up a bit straighter.

"You have to take care of yourself," Oliver chided. "Sara will kick my ass when she gets back if I let you run yourself into the ground." Hearing her name stung a bit. It was almost an unspoken rule that Sara was just avoided entirely despite the fact that she dominated Felicity's mind.

Quickly Felicity exited the screens she was on, tirelessly searching for any indication of Sara in the world.

"And you can tell me with a straight face that my condition when she returns is going to be worse than her's?" She cocked her head and waited for his answer. He drew his lips tighter and struggled with it. That was what scared Felicity. Just when she assumed she was getting somewhere, where she could see Sara, and try to understand her, a new wall was constructed, a fort was made around her and she retreated and Felicity lost it all. Maybe she would come back a different person, and be lost forever.

"We can't do anything for her," he shook his head and looked away. "Being ready to have her back, being healthy and able to fix her, that's all we can do. Try not to be angry. That's all I can say. In some way, she did it for you." Felicity opened her mouth to protest. "Ah, stop. As much as you will be mad about it, you know deep down she did it to protect you. You also knew that you would be at risk getting involved with us, and whatever she did, it was for you. I don't doubt that a bit."

Felicity inhaled and held it, closing her eyes and shaking her head. With a large and heavy sigh she pinched her eyes shut under her glasses and fought off the first bit of a migraine. Oliver was quiet and tried to think of something else to give Felicity. She wasn't even sure what she needed. Felicity was sure that if she saw Sara she wouldn't know what to do first: hug her so tightly her arms broke or throw things at her and scream until her throat bled.

"She was happy here, wasn't she?" Felicity swallowed and looked up at him, watching him squirm in his inability. He was lying when he put on this front that things were alright and that he was okay with not being able to do anything. Felicity's girlfriend left with no word of where or why or how. Things weren't okay. But contrary to the constant swirling of emotions inside of her, Felicity felt strong in the storm - dedicated to her work, to searching, to understanding.

"Yeah," he nodded again. He toyed with an arrow, rolling it between his fingers. "I really think she was." Felicity knew deep down it probably hurt him to admit it.

"She should have told me..." Felicity said, turning away and back to the computer. She set her jaw. She didn't waste time crying anymore.

"Tell you what? That she had to go away and do God know's what for God know's how long? To say goodbye? To tell you the things she's going to regret being made to do? How could she?" he didn't raise his voice but he did step closer. This was the dividing line between those who understood and experienced it and those who had no idea. Felicity knew what side she was always on. "You know there's nothing left to do but wait. And just... understand that this comes along with her. This is part of the package. Don't hold it against her."

"That's not fair," Felicity turned around. Oliver caught her eyes, glassy and angry and stung. He looked at the arrow in his hands again.

"She said this was it," he promised. "This was the last time." His words rang with conviction. Felicity still doubted them. "You gave her an alternative... _You_ did that. Part of me died on that island, and part of her did too. Big parts. You never knew us before... but we aren't the same. When I came home... I thought that this was it. I wouldn't fit in. Sara has other ties, other lives she could live. All miserable and the kind that turn anyone evil," he paused and put the arrow down on the table. "She chose you a long time ago. You just have to understand."

"I'm so angry, Oliver," Felicity shook her head. "I'm mad and scared and I hate feeling this useless."

"I know," he nodded. "She came back from the dead once already," he grinned, trying to make her feel better.

"She's not a cat," Felicity sighed. "Once is already a miracle."

"Then this will be miracle number two."

Felicity smiled slightly at that.

"I think I love her," Felicity repeated. She only allowed herself to think. She never committed aloud. "I thought I loved her."

"I know," he said again.

"Well it's really hard to be in love with an emotionally distant assassin who disappears for months at a time," she snapped, angry at herself for the admission.

"Then why are you?" he cocked an eyebrow at her.

Felicity looked away and shook her head. She wasn't sure, but she knew that she was despite it all. It was all swirling around within her as well.

"I think she might be the most interesting, beautiful person I've ever met," Felicity decided. "I think that she doesn't properly see herself. I think maybe I wouldn't have liked her, or even you, if I knew you before it all. But I know that who she is now and more importantly..." Felicity stopped and looked down at the little bird still in the palm of her hand. "I know that the person she wants to be is spectacular and astounding." She swallowed and took a breath before closing her eyes. "I'm in love with her because she keeps trying to be that person and doesn't even see that she already is." Felicity bit her lip and steadied herself. "She makes me feel like I'm better than I am. And she looks at me like... like..." she swallowed. "Like no one has ever looked at me before. And I'm afraid of losing who she thought I was."

When she looked up and met his eyes, Oliver was simply staring at her, astounded, perhaps, that this rant was so brutally honest in a way that was different then an unfiltered slip of the tongue she was prone to having. This was real and honest in a way that people aren't always used to seeing.

It made her laugh, to see him trying to compute it all, which reminded her of Sara laughing inappropriately at the hospital on the night of the mugging.

"What am I supposed to do now?" Felicity continued to laugh. "Someone shouldn't be able to come into your life and do that and then disappear. It's not fair."

Oliver was at a loss for words.

Eventually Felicity stopped laughing and calmed herself. She looked at the little bird again, traced the letters, touched its wing. _Wait for me_.

"Can I take you home?" Oliver offered. Felicity just shook her head and turned back to the computers once again before setting the little bird beside the keyboard. It was growing worn and frayed, but she didn't care. She would hang it up when she went home and wait another day for Sara to return because that was all she could do. Because there was nothing else to do but wait - angry and worried and scared and all.

* * *

"It's done," Sara said, sitting beside Ra's on the bench in the courtyard. "I'm done. I'm paid up."

"Your debt is paid when we are done and I say," he said, not even looking up from his tea.

"I've hunted your ghosts and eliminated your threats," Sara growled, trying not to raise her voice. It was quiet here. This was where she learned to dislike the silence and to not confuse it with being alone or free.

Summer hung hot and thick between the trees. The heat was the only sound, buzzing between leaves and lazily and heavily squatting in the air. It smelled like mint and dirt. This place smelled like that. No matter where she went, she couldn't shake it from her person. By now, she'd forgotten how Felicity's perfume smelled. She only thought that she remembered it, but could never quite recreate it in her head.

In the past month she'd been all over the world. She'd done things... She'd done things she didn't want to ever do again. She did them robotically, as if nothing else mattered and as if she could just flip a switch and not be bothered.

"I am not punishing you," he said calmly. His voice was grave and moral. Sara shook her head. "A debt is paid and things are settled. It is the proper order."

"Why don't you just kill me already," Sara stood, upset and angry.

"I don't want to kill you," he said quietly. "Sit down." Sara stood defiantly. "SIT!" he commanded. After a few moments she complied. "I trained you. I do not want to kill you. My daughter loves you. And I will not hurt her by harming you."

"Then why am I still here?"

"We have a common enemy now," Ra's said, setting down his cup.

"I don't have anything-"

"Slade."

Sara's mouth shut tight and quick. Her family flashed through her mind. Oliver. Digg. Felicity. She came here to finish her work so she wouldn't have to be afraid and worry, to protect them, especially Felicity.

"He had no place in this world," Ra's continued. Sara faltered and felt her chest constrict.

"Where is he?"

"Starling City."

Sara stood without another word.

* * *

"Yeah, Dad, I'm sorry," Felicity sighed into the phone balanced on her shoulder. "I heard you, I promise," she laughed a little. "Yes, I did... Something about Christmas at the cabin. See? I was right."

The refrigerator slammed behind her as she dug into a leftover carton of take-out. Felicity's father rambled as she half-listened. She couldn't think about tomorrow let alone a few months from now. And as much as she didn't want to admit it to herself, she was still unsure of what was happening. She couldn't bear to make plans and not figure out how Sara fit into them, even though it'd been nearly two months since she'd heard from her.

"Don't worry, Dad," Felicity caught his tone and words. "I'm fine, just tired. I've been working a lot. Where's Mom?"

She dug out a fork and perched herself on the counter while her father continued to talk. It was only after his second call of the day that she picked up, unable to avoid him any longer. She wasn't even sure why she didn't want to talk to anyone, but Felicity just found herself becoming very isolated lately, and she was in no rush to disrupt it. But her father was her father, at least mostly, and she could worry him. She knew what worry was, and she didn't want to contribute to it.

"I'm really okay," she insisted again as he started to prod her again. "You need to get your Dad Senses re-turned or something, because they shouldn't be tingling. I'm fine."

Felicity gave up trying to pick out any leftover chicken from her carton and put it aside.

"Father, please, I'm using your full name here, I promise that you don't need to worry," she tried to joke. It felt foreign to her now for some reason. "Yes, mhmm," she nodded and smiled at her father in her ear as she hopped off of the counter. "I will check my schedule tomorrow and call Mom. Yes, yeah, mmhmm," she nodded as he continued.

When she turned on the light in the bedroom, she flopped onto the bed and found herself staring at the flock of canaries hanging by the window and smiled sadly.

"Do you know if canaries travel in flocks or alone?" she suddenly asked her dad. He was the smartest man she knew and whatever he didn't know, he became an expert on in no time because that was how insatiable his appetite for learning had been. His daughter learned it as well.

"Those are swallows," she informed him, turning her head to stare at the ceiling and covering her eyes with her forearm.

Felicity was exhausted. But the fact that she couldn't get a proper nights sleep would have said otherwise. She was tired, but restless and she could never settle herself to get more than a few hours at a time.

"I think you're thinking of penguins," Felicity laughed and shook her head. "Okay, never mind. No, it's fine. I was just curious. I should go though, it's late. Yes, yes, yes. Dad, I already said yes," she shook her head even though he couldn't see it. "I'll call tomorrow. I will. I love you, too. Good night."

For some reason she held the phone to her ear after her father's end went dead and there was silence. The quiet on the phone and the quiet in the apartment bothered her, but she didn't know how to change it for some reason. She was afraid that the silence would make her go deaf, it was so loud and bothersome, drilling into her ears. Even the hot and humid summer rain that moped across the city was silent, not even drumming against the window or street. The world was on mute.

It was so quiet that the taps on the window were as loud as gongs and made her jump and her heart stop for a moment as she sat up.

Felicity forgot how to breathe.

It was that stupid hat that she dragged all over the world that made Felicity wince. It smelled like dirt and the ocean. Felicity knew that. It was wet now, drenched in rain. And the hair underneath was getting just as wet, but Felicity didn't move. She wasn't even aware of the phone clutched in her hand and pushed against her chest.

Sara held her hand to the glass and shivered slightly in the warm rain as it beat her clothes and finally reached skin. She didn't register it though. Not with Felicity this close. Not with the possibility that she wouldn't unlock the window. Her heart was barely beating. It thumped slow and lopsided and sad. Rain dripped down her cheeks and from the bill of her hat. But she sat there and waited, a small smile appearing at the sight of the girl in her apartment. So close.

Felicity wasn't how long she stood there, but she was convinced she was seeing a ghost, and she was afraid that if she moved, even a millimetre or less, it would disappear, and she didn't want that to happen.

It wasn't until Sara tapped again and pointed at the lock that Felicity registered that she was real. Nearly two months since she'd seen her last, and now she was real and she didn't know how to breathe let alone move. But her sense gradually returned, and Felicity lowered her arms slowly, as if she had to concentrate on each movement individually to make them happen.

Sara gave her a bigger smile, excited and eager and so close. So close. Felicity unlocked the window and pushed it up, allowing Sara to slip inside, leaving it open and a stream of dripping water forming in her bedroom.

"You lock your window now?" Sara asked, standing shyly, unsure of what to do or say now. She had an entire plane ride and walk and hours leading up to this moment, and now that it was here, she realized that she had no idea what was supposed to happen next. She honestly could only imagine this moment. Anything that came next we too undecided.

Felicity ignored her words and forgot, for a moment, all of the anger and worry and threw her arms around Sara's neck, practically jumping onto her and toppling her over. She didn't care. She couldn't believe this body was Sara and she couldn't believe she was touching it again. Her arms constricted and hugged and the cold and wet from Sara's clothes seeped into her own. But that didn't stop her. Sara's arms instinctively wrapped around Felicity, holding her tighter than should be allowed. She felt all of her lungs fill with that smell, the faint perfume smell she thought she'd forgotten.

"I can't believe it's you," Felicity whispered into her neck, not letting go a bit. Sara just nodded, unable to speak. The smell constricted her throat and she couldn't breathe. It was raining; she wasn't crying.

"I'm sorry," she mumbled, burying her nose in Felicity's shoulder. "I'm so sorry," she continued, ducking her head. "I had to. I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry."

"Are you alright?" Felicity pulled away only slightly, her fingertips already on Sara's face, appraising, searching, accounting, making sure that everything was in its proper place. "Are you hurt? Are you okay?" Sara was caught up in the whirlwind. Felicity lifted her hat and dropped it on the floor. Sara watched Felicity's eyes flicker across her face, looking for damages.

"I'm fine. Not hurt," she promised. Her fingers rooted in the hem of Felicity's shirt, latching there instinctively.

"I'm so happy to see you." Felicity finally remembered to breathe, lungs burning and heaving through a relieved smile. Sara smiled, clutching her damp clothes. "I didn't... I don't-"

Sara couldn't wait any longer. She didn't care about all the words that needed to be said and apologies made and forgivenesses sought and stories explained. Her lips were on Felicity's, cutting off any words she might be trying to say. Her hands moved and held her cheeks, held her neck, rooted themselves in Felicity's hair. She kissed her for every day she didn't get the chance and for everything that was coming.

Felicity had just caught her breath, and like that, it was gone again. For some reason she'd forgotten how much she enjoyed being kissed by Sara and internally chanted to remember every second of this. And after the initial shock of it receded, her hands gripped at Sara's collar, her arms hugged around her neck.

The world was even more silent. Sara couldn't hear a thing, or at least nothing she could register. She was too distracted by the overwhelming feelings of her other senses.

"I missed you," Sara whispered while she caught her breath. "I missed you so much," she realized, kissing Felicity again, not giving her a chance to register the words.

Sara realized her jacket was being pulled and pushed. Felicity struggled with the sticky garment. She pushed and pulled at the same time. Only then did Sara disentangle her hands and pull at the sleeves, both girls smiling victoriously when it splashed on the floor. It lasted a second before Sara caught Felicity's eye and found herself being kissed against the wall, the chill of her wet shirt freezing her spine. Felicity pressed herself against Sara's shivering, keeping her trapped there, not letting her escape. She wasn't going to lose her again. She had her, real and alive and in one piece. She wasn't going to allow her to slip through her fingers.

Felicity found herself leaning completely against Sara, eyes closed, both sets of lungs anxiously filling with denied air. Felicity swallowed and shivered, eyes closed. Her nose ran against Sara's , her forehead rested against hers.

"I can't believe you're here," she whispered. Sara swallowed the boulder in her throat and watched Felicity's eyebrows worry and eyelids keep shut tightly. Gently, she kissed her cheek, and her nose and her forehead and her eyelid and her cheek, slowly trailing from spot to spot. Felicity fell impossibly closer to her, squeezing her into the wall, ringing out water droplets from her clothes.

"I would have walked back if I had to... crawled back on hands and knees," Sara assured her. "Nothing was keeping me from coming back." She gripped Felicity's cheeks. "Nothing," she shook her head. "I love you."

Felicity swallowed and opened her eyes after a moment. Only long enough to kiss her again.

They struggled again, against each other, against time, against the wall, against the silence and the low rumble of thunder in the summer storm outside the still open window, against the sticky wet clothes that hung like a second skin. Sara pulled on Felicity's shirt, eager to feel her skin under her fingertips again. When her shirt disappeared, Felicity attached Sara's lips with renewed vigour, angry at the interruption of taking it off in the first place.

The clothes eventually disappeared. And the chill was replaced by a blush and a fever that itched at their skin. The lamp somehow fell to the floor, only noticed when it was dark suddenly. But their eyes adjusted and they didn't stop as they fell into the bed in a mess. Felicity felt like Sara was everywhere. Her lips on her shoulder and neck and chest and hips. Her skin pressed against her skin, slick with rain, damp with summer and sweat. She grabbed at her, but she was like smoke, covering and dispersing herself.

"Don't go," Felicity whispered, holding Sara's cheeks. In the dark she could make out her face and only the lines of it stuck out. Sara's hips dug into Felicity's. Her stomach stuck to hers when she tried to catch her breath. Felicity ran her fingers along Sara's face, pushing hair from her forehead, gripping her ears. "Don't go," she begged again. Sara shook her head. "Promise," Felicity furrowed her brow, prominent enough for Sara to see it in the night. Sara kissed her, laying atop her, dragging her thigh against her hips. "Promise," Felicity pulled away, rooting her hands in Sara's hair. Sara kept silent and shook her head again. She bit the inside of her cheek anxiously. She couldn't promise that. Not yet.

"I have to," she swallowed roughly. "Just a little longer."

Felicity took a breath and tried to slow down time. She felt anger and worry and fear creeping back into her. But she refused. She opened her eyes and slowly kissed Sara. She did not move with purpose. She held her, she changed the tempo, she stilled Sara to her very bones. Felicity's hands moved at their own new pace, her lips worked in half-time. She was going to give Sara a reason to crawl back from whatever corner of the globe she was bound. She put everything she had into the motions and movements and kisses.

Sara's back arched against Felicity's fingernails dragging their way up her spine, slow and certain. Her head fell into the pillow. Her lips gasped against Felicity's neck when she felt her fingers. Her hips rolled, fighting for more, but Felicity wasn't allowing it. This was her moment.

Sara felt Felicity's lips on her neck, on her ear, on her shoulder, wherever she could reach. She couldn't control herself. She moaned, hot and tepid against Felicity's neck.

"I love you," Felicity whispered. "I love you, I love you, I love you," she chanted with every movement. Sara curled herself into Felicity and focused on those words.

Time didn't stand still though. And hours passed and Sara forgot that she had to leave. Felicity forgot she had ever gone. They found themselves on the usual sides of the bed, legs braided. The sheets were somehow kicked and the pillows in a haphazard collection. The breeze from the window gave them goosebumps, but they didn't move. Just let their damp skin freeze in this second. Neither could feel their legs enough to move. Neither could feel much beyond the overload of activity they'd lost themselves in.

Felicity ran her hands through Sara's still damp hair, slowly dragging her fingertips along her temple. Sara closed her eyes and tried to memorize every ounce of this moment.

"How long can I keep you?" Felicity finally asked. Sara kept her eyes closed and breathed in the smell of the sheets.

"Forever," she decided with a grin. Felicity wanted to be mad, but she smiled instead, despite it.

"I've been so angry with you," Felicity whispered, tucking hair behind Sara's ear and resting her palm on her neck, thumb tracing her jaw. "I don't want to waste time with you being angry."

"One more loose end," Sara opened her eyes and promised. "One more, I swear it."

"It'll always be one more thing," Felicity realized. Sara bit at her cheek. She shook her head.

"No," Sara said, turning her head to kiss Felicity's palm. "I swear that this is it. I have nothing else to run from. I have nothing left to settle."

"You just left."

"I had to."

"I know that," Felicity decided. "It just sucks." Sara smiled a bit.

"Eloquent."

"I can't dress it up."

Sara scooted closer and kissed Felicity again, hugged her tighter, closer.

"There's something coming," she sighed. Felicity's hands moved to her hip. "I need to put as much distance between me and you as I can. I wouldn't do this if I thought there was another way."

"Why did you come if you couldn't stay?"

"I didn't... I hadn't meant to..." Sara realized. "I told myself, just a look, just a peek, but then I saw you, and your flock of canaries in the window, and I just... I couldn't..." She shook her head. "I needed you."

"God, I missed you," Felicity kissed her again, already knowing that she was leaving too soon.

"Will you wait for me?" Sara asked.

"I couldn't do anything else," Felicity decided. "Just... come back to me. Come back no matter what."


	9. Chapter 9

_Love is not a victory march-  
It's a cold and it's a broken hallelujah. _

"I can't imagine, Mr. Laurence," Felicity rolled her eyes and leaned her cheek on her palm. "No, I understand exactly what you're saying. I just meant- mmhmm- no - yes," she said absently, un-eagerly.

Carelessly she pushed a paper canary across her desk, slowly moving it under her computer monitor, ignoring the worried words of the man on the other end. She smiled to herself and remembered finding a different one in her kitchen after Sara slipped out into the night through the window.

The world smelled freshly cleansed in the already finished rain shower. Felicity even tugged the Rocket's hat and situated it on her girlfriend's head, taking her time, pulling at the seconds like the summer sun in at dusk. She remembered Sara's amused smile as Felicity tucked and situated the hat, purposeful and precise. Felicity tried to tell her how important she was and show her what she had waiting to come back to once this was all over. But all she could do was put on the stupid hat and fret over buttons. Words were failing her because she couldn't just say what she wanted - _don't go. don't go. don't go. I love you. don't go. don't go. don't go_.

That night felt so long ago. It _was_ long ago. Sometimes she was convinced she would always be waiting, for the rest of her life. She wasn't sure how she got to this point, the point of waiting. But it was terrifying. And then a paper canary would find its way into her life. Sometimes weeks would pass and nothing, and then a string of them. This one had been waiting on her desk a few mornings ago. It felt like a sign, but it could have been Sara just passing through. They still gave her hope though. They made her realize that Sara thought about her too. And that was everything. It made her less afraid and less worried, but at the same time, more anxious and eager.

She turned in her chair and watched the sun shining in the reflection of the other skyscrapers. The summer had set in, quiet and stifling, making days stretch like taffy, thick and never-ending. From her perch atop the world, Felicity watched the evening drip onto the city, cooling it slightly.

"Mr. Laurence, have I failed you yet?" she asked finally, waiting for the response she knew she would get. "Exactly. Please, trust me, okay? Okay? okay." She smiled and thought about how just a year ago she'd been perfectly happy in the IT department. She wondered if she would ever get back there. She didn't even like what she was doing, and it wasn't like she was much help lately to Oliver. She sighed into the phone and looked longingly at the city and the semblance of her old nine-to-five life.

"Don't worry," she tried again. "I promise. Yes, Yes, I do. Well that depends, how much are we talking and what are the benefits?" she laughed and turned back around to her desk. A gentleman had his back to her, perusing a painting opposite of her. "I'm sorry, I'm a bit pricier than that," she laughed again, eyeing his back. "Oyasuminasai, Mr. Laurence." Slowly she hung up the phone and stood awkwardly.

"Can I help you?" Felicity braced herself on the desk. It was well past a reasonable hour to show up without notice.

"I'm sorry," he turned around. Felicity straightened slightly when she met his face. "I don't have an appointment. I was hoping to see Mr. Queen." The lumbering man took a few steps towards her. She knew who he was. She knew why he was here. She'd spent her nights researching everything about him. She spent her time scouring newspapers and files and hacking into places she could go to jail for hacking into to find him. He once strangled her girlfriend. He was the reason she hadn't seen her in nearly two months.

"I'm sorry, he's been out of the office this afternoon," she smiled, trying to have some sort of resolve. "Would you like to leave a message, mister..."

"Wilson," he put his huge hand out. "Slade Wilson." Tentatively, Felicity shook it and smiled, hoping her face didn't betray the panic revolting in her bones. "An old, old friend of Mr. Queen's, and you are?"

"Felicity Smoak," she dropped his hand. His glance felt intrusive. He smiled widely though, never betraying anything he might know or think. She played her part, the assistant who was oblivious to her very mortality. She was sure he knew more about her. He had to because he was precise and he was better than a ghost. He was too good to not know everything about her before stepping foot in this office.

"It is a pleasure, Miss Smoak," he nodded chivalrously with a slight bow.

"I can try to reach him, if it's an emergency?" she offered, hoping this was the case, hoping for some help.

"Oh, no," Slade shook his head and laughed. "Just in the neighbourhood, and I thought I'd catch him by surprise," he smiled again. "I can't believe he leaves you up here, unattended, while he's off playing."

"Well, someone's got to run things, I guess," she tried to take his words with confidence, but she was afraid that every word screamed that she knew Oliver was the Arrow and that she knew Slade was a murderous, mutated man set on revenge for unknown reasons and he very much wanted to kill her girlfriend. But there was nothing tying her to Sara except for Oliver, and there was the possibility that Slade didn't know everything.

"That's true," he nodded to himself, surveying her desk. "Perhaps I could steal you away from him. A good business man is always on the look out for potential."

"That's very kind of you, Mr. Wilson," Felicity returned graciously, nervously staring at his wondering eye, afraid of what it saw, afraid of what she betrayed. It felt like a chess match and she was left with only pawns against an army of queens moving violently about the board. "But I can't complain with my work here."

"Loyalty is just another quality I admire, Miss Smoak," he grinned. "I'll leave you with this then," he reached into his jacket pocket and handed her a card. She took it slowly and stared at it while he spoke. "If you ever change your mind. You might want to tell Mr. Queen that I've got my eye on you," he chuckled and grinned. Felicity felt her blood freeze. "I might try to steal you away."

"Anything else I should pass on, Mr. Wilson?" she asked, swallowing the tremble that threatened her throat. If they could be brave, she could be brave. She was facing the demon straight on, no back up, and she was holding her own for the moment.

"Just let him know I'll be around," he nodded thoughtfully to her. Felicity traced the edge of the business card in her hand and didn't break eye contact until Slade looked down again.

"This is quite impressive," he said, picking up the origami bird. It was so tiny in his huge hands. "Did you make this?" Felicity didn't answer, and he didn't wait for her to. "Do you know what a canary is good for?" he asked, staring right at her. She shook her head. "You've never heard of a canary in a coal mine?" Again, she responded negatively. "Miners used them to warn them of toxic gases underground. When the canaries stopped singing, it meant death was right around the corner."

"I suppose I'll have to invest in a gas mask."

Slade laughed heartily at her.

"I certainly hope you do," he nodded, meeting her eyes again, smile growing bigger and bigger. "I won't keep you from work any longer, Miss Smoak," he extended his hand again. Felicity shook it once more. "Have a good evening."

"Good night, Mr. Wilson," Felicity offered, rooted in the spot, unable to move. She watched him swagger back to the elevator, chest puffed.

It wasn't until a few minutes after he disappeared that she flopped into her chair and allowed herself to breathe again. She stared at the little bird, back in its place, convinced that Sara was dead and she was next. Felicity's heart beat too hard, deafening her, her lungs shivered and sputtered. She put her hand to her chest and pushed, trying to find some sort of balance. She felt too much at once and the entire world smothered her and cracked her bones.

When she got a hold of Oliver, she could barely speak. She was desperate to talk to Sara. She was suddenly caught in the middle.

* * *

"What else did he say to her?" Sara growled. She paced the floor like a beast in a cage. "What did he do?"

"Calm down," Oliver tried. But managing Sara was like trying to make a grizzly bear see logic and not want to attack the campers.

"He's trying to draw me out, Ollie," she snarled. To say she couldn't think straight was an understatement. Thoughts clouded her, made her blind, made her ears ring in a cacophony of drumming, eager impulses.

"Which is exactly why he needs to think that you aren't here anymore. You know the plan. It's your fucking plan."

"I can't just keep going. I mean... so what? So he can think that no one is standing between him and Felicity?" Sara felt her voice raising as she paused her pacing, then resumed, then paused and resumed. "Because you know that the next step isn't a nice visit to your office. He will use her. I don't even know what he's capable of or what he knows. Look at what he did to Thea. Look at what he can do to you!"

"And if you put yourself between her now, for no reason?" he held up his hand as she tried to interject. "Hear me out. If you confront him now, he will know beyond a doubt that she is important to you, and then it will be his mission to punish you through her. Now, there is still a doubt. And he has no idea where you are. You know this."

Sara stood angry and still. The thoughts running through her head were survivalist, they were instinctual and primal and she was afraid of what she suddenly saw herself capable of being.

"Felicity is the perfect bait. He will slip up trying to scare her, I know it," he explained.

"If he touches one hair on her head," Sara stood close to him, angry and tense, shoulders tight and tall like a leopard on a branch at a watering hole; ready to strike. "I swear to God, I'll kill you." She felt her lips flare and her teeth gnash and flash. She wasn't sure if she was bluffing.

"Just keep doing what you're doing," he said softly as she seemed to shrink back to normal size. "Don't shut me out. I can help."

"This is League business," Sara said, regaining some form of control. She had to; there had to be a business-like approach or else she would go mad. "You'll know what we tell you. And we'll do what we must."

"Don't do this, Sara," he stood straighter. But he had his own schemes, and Sara had hers.

"I can work with them," she sighed. "You can't. They're my best bet. Don't try to contact me again. This is the last time, Oliver."

"What now? You go back with them?" he followed her as she shrugged on her coat. "If you ask them for favours, you'll be in their debt again." She adjusted her hat.

"Don't," she shook her head, pausing. "Don't." It was a weak warning. Her anger had drained her body. Now she didn't know which way was up and what was happening from moment to moment. She couldn't go back to the League and she couldn't ask them for help. But they were offering, and for once, she trusted them more than Oliver. He let pride and valour cloud his judgement. She needed emotionless, lethal, unregulated support. She barely trusted herself.

"Tell me how I can help, tell me whatever you need, and I'll do it," he pulled her around so she was facing him.

"I know what I have to do," she shook her head. "I'm going to kill him."

"How? We literally can't."

"I'm working on that."

"They're coming, aren't they?" Oliver asked quietly. Sara didn't respond. They'd been here for weeks. "You're going to get yourself killed," he warned.

Sara stood, quiet and thoughtful at the door. And then it all made sense to Sara and she nodded thoughtful and far away.

"Just, give this to Felicity," she placed the canary from her pocket on the table. "And keep me out of it. Tell her to stop whatever she's working on. This is what matters. This will keep her safe." She pointed to the little bird. The idea of who I once was, Sara thought, swallowing and staring at the little bird.

"She's worried," Oliver offered.

That fact made Sara anxious because a worried Felicity was stressed and eager for a fight she couldn't win. It made her feel guilty for making her worry so much. The beautiful girl who giggled when she was thinking devious things and who could spout off three thousand facts about random things because she was nervous and afraid of silence.

"Watch them," she said, standing straight to leave. "That's what I need you to do for me."

He nodded and she left without a second to pause and think about what she was doing. She had to get back to the lab. She had to get back to the League. She had to see Felicity. She had to see her one last time.

* * *

"I haven't seen her in nearly four months," Felicity sighed. That was a lie. She saw her two months ago, but she wasn't sure she could explain the activities they'd engaged in or even why Sara came for one night.

"Do you know anything?" Officer Lance asked, gripping his coffee mug tightly, sheltering in its warmth.

"I'm sorry," she shook her head. "I wish I could... I don't..."

"No, it's fine, I just had to ask," the father smiled sadly. "I worry, you know?" he gave her sad, big eyes. "I know she is strong and smart and good, but even Superman's parents worried about him. She's strong, but there are stronger, worse people out there, and a father will always worry."

"I understand," Felicity tried to put him at ease. "I would give anything to know how she is right now, to help her, to do something. But I have to believe, somehow, she's alright."

"I can't believe she left you," Officer Lance shook his head as he swallowed the last bit of coffee. "She was doing so well here, so happy. It was like I had her back. And you did a number on her."

Felicity tried not to smile to herself as she refilled his mug. Even though she felt guilty for not telling him that she'd seen Sara, or even feeling guilty for seeing her and wanting to keep her to herself. But she was almost telling the truth. She hadn't heard from Sara in two months, and the most communication she'd had with her was a canary that appeared in her apartment a few mornings ago. And that came three days after she'd found a hit on Sara and the League and the heist of some very expensive equipment in Hong Kong. It said: _it is an ever-fixed mark, That looks on tempests, and is never shaken. _It meant that Sara loved Felicity, even when things were hard, that she was a motivation. Felicity understood the words and made them her own as well. She chanted them whenever she was afraid.

"What is our friend doing about this?" he asked. "Is it all linked to Thea Queen's abduction? This Wilson fellow? Is he dangerous?"

"The Arrow is doing what he can," Felicity offered. "Other than that, I'm as stumped as you are. The questions are unending, the trails are always cold, I can't make heads or tails of much." She still wasn't lying. She felt the same frustrations at being out of the loop because there was no loop.

Felicity just sat there and listened and assured and was assured by the father. When she invited him for a cup of coffee it was almost as a moment of weakness to find some closeness to Sara, to feel like she was still part of Felicity's life. She hadn't expected him to show up, though it was a pleasant surprise.

While he spoke and vented, she found herself commiserating with him, both missing this girl, both afraid that they'd lost her forever. Felicity found her mind equally distracted by the nagging words on her last canary. They made her brave and they made her courageous. Both very different concepts.

"It just must be something bad coming if she's protecting us by leaving," the father observed solemnly. Felicity just nodded. "She will come back this time, won't she?"

"I don't think anything could keep her away," Felicity assured him. "I genuinely believe that." For Felicity that was what the words meant. In the face of anything, Sara was coming back.

"One day," he said while standing. "She'll figure it out." Felicity wanted to agree and assure him, but he seemed so positive that her words got stuck in her mouth. "I'll get out of your hair. Thank you," he hugged Felicity before she could figure out what was happening. "If you hear from her..."

"I'll let you know," she lied.

* * *

"Let me know if I can do anything," Sara's father said. She heard it from the darkness in the bedroom. His voice made her blood freeze. "And if you do hear from her... just tell her I love her."

"Of course," Felicity returned. Sara leaned against the wall, pushing herself against it, wanting to become part of it. "Have a safe trip home."

"Don't hesitate to call if you need anything," he offered gallantly.

Sara hadn't counted on her father being around Felicity's apartment. She hadn't expected to stay. She would leave this bird and be a ghost. But now... but now she ached for something and she wasn't sure what it was. She ached for something she'd forgotten for the past few months and across the miles and sea and continents.

Felicity and her father exchanged niceties at the door and the apartment grew quiet after it was shut. Sara held her breath. She listened to Felicity cleaning the kitchen and still debated. Quietly, she moved to the dresser and sprayed a bit of Felicity's perfume on her wrist, set the canary beside it, and crept back out the window.

* * *

"You're not going to ask me to reconsider, are you?" Sara asked with a grin.

"It's too late for that," Nyssa smiled as she tightened the straps on the table around her wrists. Sara struggled against them and became satisfied with their capabilities to restrain her fully.

"You're sure that remedy will work?" Sara asked, settling back against the table, arms still held out, body still restrained.

"No," Nyssa shook her head. "But that's the best I've got."

"Do you think this will work?" she tried another approach.

"Yes."

"That's good enough for me," Sara grinned away the tension.

"You are a good person," Nyssa returned the smile.

"Let's hope I stay that way," Sara shrugged.

"Good luck," Nyssa nodded and kissed her cheek. "Never forget what you are doing this for."

She disappeared a moment later. Sara looked at the control room and waited for her to appear. She held the paper canary in her hand and tried to move her face enough to look, but it was strapped down too well. Sara just felt it there and chanted the words she'd given Felicity.

"Ready?" Nyssa called from the control room. A pause turned into ten before Sara nodded.

The needle filled with Mirakuru lowered to her bicep.

"Don't forget her," Sara chanted, eyes closed tightly. "Don't forget her."

The canary crumpled in her fist as she gripped it with the invasion of the needle into her skin. A second later it flopped to the ground as her body gave up to the concoction.


	10. Chapter 10

_Woken up like an animal_  
_Teeth ready for sinking_  
_My mind's lost in bleak visions_  
_I've tried to escape but keep sinking._

It was slight, but it was there. Felicity stared at the grainy image on the computer. The longer she looked at it the more it became unbelievable and abstract. The picture was two weeks old already, but she just found it and tried not to let the lag in time make her worry. With just a few more seconds, Felicity allowed herself to stare at the pixelated image of the side of her girlfriend's face. She allowed herself to think that she saw a new frayed edge on the Rocket's cap. She thought that she saw a dark rim around her eyes indicating exhaustion. She thought that she saw her arm linked with another woman. She tried not to see that part. But it was like a three-dimensional picture, where she focused and unfocused and leaned in and leaned out and saw different things at every angle.

Shaking her head and sighing, Felicity added it to the timeline she'd created. The timestamp on the security camera read exactly nineteen days ago. The only other picture she had came sixteen days before that and was in Kuala Lumpur. There had been a robbery at a medical research outpost. At least nineteen days ago, she had been in Prague. And eighteen days ago there had been a massive heist of lab equipment in the same city. She sat back and looked at the haphazard collection of glimpses of her girlfriend, trying to figure out what was happening, trying to figure out the endgame. But she wasn't just a step behind. She was weeks in lag.

Set beside the inklings of history she had of Slade, it was clear that both sides were preparing for war, in different ways, but each individually terrifying. Sadly, Felicity pulled another newspaper article up onto the screen and added it to Slade's reign of terror. Following Thea's abduction and return, the acquisition of Queen enterprises, the bombing perpetrated by herself and Oliver, now sat Moira Queen's obituary.

Both timelines were escalating in their severity. Both were getting closer and closer to intersecting.

"I didn't think I'd find you here," a voice made Felicity turn slightly in her chair. She still stared at the screens.

"I was hoping to find Oliver," she sighed. "Same as you I guess."

Digg pulled up a chair and sat beside her. Slowly he unbuttoned his jacket and smoothed his pants over his knees anxiously. Felicity returned to her computer, running another program that mapped the locations of confirmed and possible incidents related to the threats at hand.

"You haven't seen him then?" she asked quietly, ducking her head and looking at the bodyguard. He just shook his head softly. Felicity nodded and returned to the screen. "The wake was nice," Felicity finally tried. Her head was throbbing, but she blinked through it.

"I didn't even see him there longer than ten minutes," Digg shook his head. "I should have done... something." Felicity heard him sit back in his chair while she scanned the images on the screen. "I should have said something... or tried to follow..." He trailed off, unsure of what could be done. "Or at least checked on you. I should have made sure you were alright. Especially after everything."

Felicity shook her head, interrupting his thought. Death can do that, though. Make people thoughtless and weak and confused and angry and scared. It made people slip up and it made people anxious.

"Do you ever feel insanely ineffectual?" she turned to him, defeated and alone. "I mean, we are just sidekicks, we never were damaged beyond repair or trapped on an island or trained to be assassins. Well, just me, I guess. You've killed people, haven't you?" she looked at him, ashamed of herself. "I guess I mean... overall... We don't even know what the hell is happening half of the time. They never tell us anything. They're just as flesh and blood as we are." Felicity grew angry and upset. The words and images on her screen blurred. "We're just supposed to take care of them, like they're little children, who keep their own secrets, and they make us love them, you know?" she turned, slightly becoming aware of her words, aware of how rambling and wild they were. "We're here to wipe up the cuts and bruises, make sure they eat and bathe, like babysitters. Don't play with this, don't touch that, are you sure about this, are you sure about that. It's hopeless. They're crushed under the weight of it all anyway. I'm not even a good babysitter."

She grew quiet, catching her breath from the rush of words she hadn't expected. They came out with her worry and they came out in a torrent because she was scared and upset and the idea of a funeral made her understand mortality so much more clearly.

"Why won't they just let us help them?" she finally grumbled.

There was no answer for her helplessness, and they both knew it because they both shared it. Digg just rested his hand on her shoulder and squeezed softly while she ran her hands along her cheeks.

"We believe in them," he sighed. "They give us hope, they give everyone hope. It's important. We do important things. We couldn't do what we do without you," he assured the upset hacker. She just nodded and stared back at the screen.

"I haven't heard from her in a month," Felicity finally confessed. "Something's not right. I can't pinpoint it. But this," she flicked her hand at the screens. "Something isn't right, Digg. Something is wrong."

"Did you expect her back for Moira's funeral?" Digg asked, leaning over the desk, looking at the research. Both sat there, thinking and debating and not thinking at all.

"I don't know," Felicity decided. "I've just realized that she's been gone nearly as long as I've known her. Maybe I don't. Maybe I don't know her. Maybe I never did." Diggle watched her shoulders fall and her eyes never leave the screen.

"You don't believe that," he said, watching her.

"I wish I did," she sighed. In truth, she thought she knew Sara better than Sara would ever admit. It was hard to admit that though. It made her more ineffectual. It made her more worthless.

"It'll get easier. You're a good soldier, strong shoulders to help hold it all, to hold anything that is given to you."

"Do you ever wonder what we got ourselves into?"

"All of the time," he nodded. "Usually when someone is shooting at me." That made Felicity chuckle once.

"I love her, Digg," Felicity shook her head. "She made me fall in love with her and I hate her for it."

"You are the brains of this team," he offered, scooting closer. "But you're also the heart. You keep us all going. You have strong morals. You have this optimism that is contagious, and we need that. Sara needs that. Now more than ever." Felicity tried to nod and agree. But something about seeing Moira in a coffin and the look on Oliver's face made her wary of optimism. It made the bleakness too real. There was no more time for fantasy.

"There are two outcomes that I can see, and both scare me," she finally said, looking down at the canary that sat on the desk. It was older and faded, the joints of its wings nearly worn threadbare and weak. "The first is the easiest: Slade kills us all," she shrugged and debated. Digg smirked a bit. "The second is the scary one. Somehow we kill Slade, and they wrap up all of the demons from that ridiculous island, and we're left in the aftermath, unable to live." There was quiet. "I'm not sure what is left will be salvageable."

For a few moments they sat there, unsure of what to do. Diggle wanted to tell her something that would keep her motivated, restore the confidently awkward and incredibly talented member of the team, but she was right, in the end. Felicity wanted to eat her words as soon as they reached her lips. Speaking them made them true. She'd gotten herself into a mess.

"Option three: you and me save the city and their moody asses, with no help." Felicity smiled, turning her head to the thoughtful soldier. He was right when he said that she was the heart of the team. It wasn't in her to give up to the darkness or resign herself to failure, especially not now, especially when she had only been given a tiny taste of happiness and love. As much as she wanted to give up, she would find something salvageable. She wouldn't stop because there was a flock of paper birds in her window and this was a love that was supposed to defy odds. She knew that. "Between the two of us there has to be some unbiased, science and logic-based, viable ideas. We figure it out and we get them back and we fix it all."

"As long as we don't have to wear leather," he grinned and rubbed her back. She squeezed his knee. "You and me, kid. To the rescue."

"Let's get to work then," Felicity decided.

"You should take it easy," Digg tried. "You're still recovering."

"I'm fine," she said. Her hand absently went to her ribs which still ached. The cast on her wrist was already nothing to distract her, and the stitches and cuts on her face and body were healing.

"Slade gave you a pretty hard message to deliver," Digg tried again.

"Well, I must have misplaced that slip," she shrugged. "I wouldn't give her up, even if I did know where she was."

"It's okay to be afraid," Digg told her.

"Good," Felicity pursed her lips, tensing at her jaw. "Because I'm terrified. But I'm more angry."

* * *

The rain came down in an annoying drizzle, steady and firm, blurring the green pastures and rivets of the cemetery. It bounced from umbrellas and mourner's coats and headstones. There was no wind or slant to it, just a steady, straight inundation that made the world wet and weary in its quiet relentlessness.

Cars kicked up puddles as they left the mound of dirt covered in tarp. Slowly the convoy disappeared as people moved on and continued living, leaving only a small handful at the open pit in the ground where the coffin finally came to rest. Sara watched from a distance, understanding the risk of it, but also needing two things to happen. First, she waited for Slade, to see if he would appear to admire his handiwork. Second, she saw Felicity.

There was no sign of Slade, but she'd been back in Starling City for less than thirteen hours, and she was sure she would find his trail soon enough, before anyone else got hurt. Her hand dug into the back of the tree she leaned against. Her fingers pulled a fistful of bark from it. She closed her eyes and took a breath, letting the hunk of wood drop to the ground.

Deep down, Sara knew that she wasn't in control of herself yet. The Mirakuru was stronger than she'd expected, and the side effects were dizzying. She looked back at the five bodies standing near the hole and found Felicity. Her arm was around Thea's shoulders while Oliver did the same. They three stood there and stared ahead. Digg held the umbrella and Laurel held Oliver's hand. Sara only heard whispers of their words from the distance, but just seeing Felicity made her calmer. It was a calm that had been absent for weeks since she injected herself the first time.

The second and third times were the worst. The fourth was mild. And by the fifth, she felt inhuman again. But Nyssa was sure they were close to a cure, and with Ivo's notes Sara was a willing test subject because of those people standing around that hole, a hole that she was determined would never be one of them. Every time she woke up from an injection, she looked at a paper canary and remembered. Sometimes she would forget things, others she would discover a memory that locked itself away, beyond the chemicals. But when she closed her eyes and felt the paper creases with her blind fingers, she smelled Felicity's perfume, or felt her hip bone or remembered what her lips felt like and she felt a false sense of control.

That control was broken more often than not. The lab in Malaysia. The Hospital in Zurich. The plane over Moscow. She felt afraid of herself because she was so much like Slade. Sometimes she wanted to rip her own skin off.

Her racing mind lost all thought when she met Felicity's eyes. She watched the girl squint and try to figure out if she saw anything. Sara was too afraid to move. Felicity moved to dry her glasses and Sara ducked, pulling the hat most snuggly over her ears. She held her breath and made herself not look back at the sight.

By the time Felicity made her way to the spot she thought she saw something, Sara was long gone. She picked up a bit of wood and saw where it'd been pulled from the tree. A small, yellow paper canary sat in the fist-sized divot.

* * *

Never again. That was what Felicity decided when she took those heels off and surveyed the damage done to them by the rain. Ruined. She decided with a huff and threw them on the floor in a clacking clamour once she locked the door behind her. Her purse followed, flung against the couch. She was tired and achy and just wanted painkillers and to sleep for a very long time and not have nightmares that involved Slade or Sara's face in a coffin.

"Not exactly the welcome I expected," a voice made her jump and clutch her chest. She wasn't sure she'd ever get used to the element of surprise that had came into her life. She just knew that she wouldn't mind if it disappeared.

"I don't know where she is," Felicity responded flatly.

"You know," Slade said, strolling in the living room. "You should be more careful. Those bruises look bad. Maybe some ice would help."

"What do you want?" Felicity sighed.

"Is this a bad time?" he asked, conversationally. His tone annoyed Felicity, unsettled her, made her anxious.

"I don't know where she is," Felicity repeated.

Slade nodded thoughtfully and sat on the couch, smoothing his jacket as he did. The smile never fully left his face. It was a grin that made Felicity's stomach flip. Like a cheshire cat- devious and rotten.

"Don't be formal on my account," he motioned for her to sit. "We're past niceties, I think."

"I'm fine," Felicity shook her head.

"Don't be like that," he chuckled. "I told you I'm sorry about the whole... accident. Some of my associates can get a little overzealous." Felicity stayed still. "I'm sorry to have to do all of this. I know you had nothing to do with anything, really."

"I don't even know what happened," Felicity interjected.

"You never heard the story then?" He grinned wider. "Now that's a shame. Perhaps ask your girlfriend."

"I don't know where she is," Felicity repeated.

"I'm actually prone to believe you," he nodded, unmoving. "That doesn't change what needs to be done." In that moment Felicity knew what was coming. She knew that he was a cat playing with his dinner. Her eyes fluttered and her her lungs stalled, but she bit her lip and stood there. "You won't have a seat?" he leaned forward slightly. Felicity shook her head quickly and gnawed on her lip.

The quiet in the room was thick and heavy. Felicity felt as if her muscles were twitching and itching to jump and skip, but she stayed still. She blinked and moved her eyes and set her jaw and hugged her torso, but she didn't cry and she didn't yield.

"You love her, don't you?" He asked, turning towards her slightly. Felicity didn't have to answer. "Five years ago tomorrow, your employer loved her, too. You knew that part though, didn't you?" Felicity stared straight ahead. "Answer me!" he bellowed. Her eyes snapped to his. Every muscle in her face locked. He stared at her for a moment before regaining his composure.

"I knew," Felicity managed somehow.

"Did you know that he chose her over the woman he was supposed to be in love with? The woman that I loved?" He sat back in the chair and smoothed again. "He let someone be murdered and Sara sat there and let him."

"They saved your life," Felicity mentioned.

"This is no life!" he stood. Felicity flinched at his voice. "They deserve to live as I have lived!" The veins bulged in his neck. "They deserve to suffer as I have suffered. They deserve to become the monster I have become!" He was shaking, anger simmering his skin. Felicity didn't mean to, but she flinched.

"She won't come for me," Felicity stood straighter as he attempted to compose himself again. She watched the losing battle.

"I don't care," he shook his head again. "I will cut her as deep as she cut me."

They were quiet now in the room. Slade righted himself. Felicity nodded and tried to think straight. He checked his watch.

"I think it's about time for us to be heading out." He came close to Felicity. "Shall we?"

Reluctantly she smiled and felt her lip trembling. She nodded and took a deep breath. She didn't bother with her shoes or purse. She allowed herself to be ushered toward the door.

"I am sorry for your loss," Felicity said through quivering lungs. "You don't know it yet, but you've caused me the same suffering. I lost so much time with her because of you." She turned to face him, closing her eyes tightly before meeting his. "I'm very sorry that you've had to live with this for so long. It's..." Felicity swallowed, bit her lip, sniffled, felt a tear betray her. For some reason her hands wouldn't move to wipe it away. It fell like an alligator's, big and fat and quick. "It is unbearable to be away from someone you love. It would make anyone crazy." She took a deep breath again, closing her eyes tightly, blinking extra long. "Don't hurt her," she said, summoning all the strength she had. "Don't hurt her."

Slade stared at her hard, watching her face tremble and another tear fall. She didn't seem to notice and it was an affront. She trembled like a leaf, but ignored it. She might have been the bravest person he'd ever met who faced death at his hands. It was her genuineness and empathy. It was real and good. Slade set his jaw.

"We'll be late," was all he could say, reaching past her to open the door. As he followed, he leaned down and picked up her shoes, closing the door behind him as they left the apartment.


	11. Chapter 11

_Most of all, what I desire  
is absolution and one more try  
to make things right. _

"Rise and shine," Slade's voice was accompanied by a gentle tapping on Felicity's cheek. She shook her head and pulled away. Her body felt foreign and dumb to her senses. She wondered if she was dead or dreaming. Her incoherence felt like both.

It all came in a rush then as she bolted awake, jerking at the zip ties around her wrists and chest and ankles. She blinked and felt her eyes burn against the bright light flashed in her face. Suddenly, she was quite aware of how much her body hurt, and the sensation of dried blood on her face. When she looked down, finding the dirt and grime on her arms and the tears of her dress, she blinked rapidly and looked up at Slade again. It was hard to figure out what bruises were fresh and which were the old ones from the abduction last week. She felt her throat grumbling, trying to speak words she didn't even know to say. Questions and screams blurred quietly into an incoherent jumble behind her closed lips, rumbling in her throat as she shook her head and fought the restraints weakly.

It'd been the longest night of her life, and Felicity felt the dull ache on the back of her head that told her she hadn't fallen asleep. But before, before the gracious smack that made the world go dark, she remembered how much she had become acquainted with pain. Her face was sore and every part of her felt swollen and bruised. It was almost too much to bear at once. But this place, this room was different then where they'd been last night. This was not the cell she'd been kept in.

"I don't know where she is," she spit and shook her head. It'd been her response the entire night, through the unspeakable torture, through hearing Thea screaming the same thing in another room.

"I'm not worried about that," Slade lifted her chin and met her eyes. "She'll be up here soon enough." His smile made her weak and when he let go of her chin, her head fell of its own free will. Felicity jerked her face away as best she could though. As her eyes cleared and the giant man stood and turned around, she looked about the room and recognized bits and pieces as her office, or at least Oliver's floor of Queen Consolidated. Everything was quiet.

"Thea!?" She yelled, not seeing or hearing the girl. "Thea!? What did you do to her? Where is she?" Felicity rasped, spitting blood and salt from her mouth as it blurred her words.

"You have to compartmentalize," Slade stood at the window. The world was dark and filled with clouds ready to burst at any moment. It made it impossible for Felicity to figure out what time it is or how long she'd been unconscious. "You are in Sara's compartment. Thea is in Oliver's. And Laurel, well, lucky for me she covers both."

Felicity looked around the room and was unable to find any indication of anyone else except the armed guards at the door. She coughed and struggled against the restraints. She pulled and tried to kick before realizing that she couldn't break them and even if she did, what was going to happen? The armed guards would get her and it wasn't as if she could even scratch Slade. She let out a wail, a frustrated moan and growl that sounded like what she imagined a mammoth stuck in tar did, resigned to its fate after one last push.

"Don't struggle, darling," Slade turned only his head, arms still crossed across his broad chest gazing onto the city. "You were so brave last night, so noble. Don't forget it. I don't want to have to change my opinion of you so close to your impending doom."

"She won't come for me," Felicity said finally. Her lips stuck together. She struggled to keep her head up. Her lungs burned. Her brain could barely keep thinking clearly or thinking period.

"I thought you were smarter than that," Slade chuckled and turned finally. Roughly he turned the monitor on her desk around so that she could see the screen. Without her glasses she squinted. Her swollen shut eye didn't help. "Oh, how rude of me," he hurried with a forgetful laugh and placed her glasses over her ears. "I cleaned these for you. The lenses were filthy." Tenderly he stroked the hair from her face and smiled as he adjusted them. "There we go, all better right?"

"Help! In here! Oliver!?" Thea's dim cries finally emerged.

"She's just a kid," Felicity pulled her head away again. "Let her go." She struggled again to no avail.

"Compartmentalize," he tapped her nose and smiled sweetly. "You have your hands full enough, Miss Smoak. Perhaps luckily, Thea is in much better shape than you. We had no reason to harm her yet."

"Yet?" Felicity swallowed the dryness of her mouth and choked.

Slade gripped the bottom of her chair and slid it closer to the screen as she yelped.

"Take a gander," he pointed at the screen and then at the security camera in the corner of the office. "Why would I harm her? I have no one to watch. Watching is what I missed. I never got a chance to save her. It's the chance, that I'm after."

On the screen Felicity saw Sara, hands cuffed behind a chair, head bent and flopped to the side. She looked relatively better than Felicity felt though. Her heart skipped and raced and her lungs contracted and didn't release.

"Sara," she whispered.

"Of course she would come for you," Slade laughed, sitting on the desk cockily beside the monitor. "I had it wrong, you know," he picked up the paper canary on the desk. "You are the one in the mine. You are the canary. I just had to show Sara. Now she can watch you die. She chose you, over her sister."

"Sara!" Felicity screamed, leaning forward, straining against the restraints. "Sara!"

"She can't hear you," Slade shook his head and continued to play with the bird. "We had to sedate her after she watched what we did to you last night. You know, it was impressive," he nodded, pleasantly surprised. "She didn't blink or make a noise. She just sat there and watched you suffer." He stole a glance at the girl in the chair. "She didn't even wince. The only time she struggled was when we sedated her. Now let's see how you fare." He lifted the telephone on the desk and bobbed his head slightly, grinning wildly as he waited. "Wake her up," he said into the phone and hung up quickly.

Before she could register, he pulled her chair impossible closer to the screen.

"Don't disappoint, Miss Smoak," he said, pointing to the screen.

"Sara," Felicity wailed, pleaded, sobbed. The restraints dug into her shoulders, dug into her back, dug into her wrist and arms and legs. If it hadn't been for them she would have fallen out of the chair.

Men started beating the unconscious body until it became aware. There was no noise, and the silence made it even more unbearable.

"Stop!" Felicity shouted, looking at Slade after seeing Sara tilt her head back with a huge smile. She shook her head and spit to the side of the room. They continued to beat her. "Please! Stop!"

"Don't worry," Slade informed her. "This is just pre-season play," he smiled. "She knows it." He looked over to the men at the door. "Bring her up," Slade stood and left Felicity watching the monitor. Two men lifted Sara so she was standing, or at least being dragged along until they disappeared from the camera.

"Don't hurt her," Felicity coughed and turned to him. He laughed, deep and dark.

"Miss Smoak, honestly," he held his hand to his chest. "You have to know by now that it isn't about that. I will not harm her more than she deserves."

"Don't kill her, please," she begged again.

"I see no point in killing her," he shrugged. "I want her to live with what I have lived with every day for the past five years." He snarled and growled and leaned against the desk. Felicity shook her head. "Unfortunately, it's you that I have to kill." A phone rang in his pocket. "Excuse me, just a moment, won't you, Miss Smoak?" he ran his hand through his hair and became the charming man again.

While he was in the office, she looked around the office, unsure of what she could do. She was essentially helpless. But she couldn't believe that she was alone. She had to believe that if Oliver was still out there, he was doing something.

"Slade is bringing in Sara!" she said in a normal tone. "I don't know where Thea is." She looked at the guard beside the elevator. "There is a guard at the door." She spoke and blurted all she could about the room in hopes that someone was listening. "I saw six guards with Sara. I don't know where she's being held."

"Shut it," the guard came forward and lifted his hand. An arrow pierced his shoulder, breaking the window. He flinched, looked at in his skin, and pulled it out without wincing. "About time," he grunted, gun readied and looking out the window.

"Perfect timing," Slade stepped back in at the racquet of the broken window. He rubbed his hands together excitedly.

"They are going to kill you," Felicity grinned finally and looked at him.

"I welcome it," Slade smiled, holding his arms out. "I have no fear of death, Miss Smoak. They may kill me, but I will make them suffer."

"You never loved Shado," Felicity spit back. "You couldn't have. She wouldn't have loved you. Love can't be near something so vile."

"You don't know her!" he screamed. "You think I am different from the one you love?!" His muscles tensed. "We wear masks!" he yelled, holding up his own. "We have done terrible things!" he continued. "We are both filled with Mirakuru now," he said in a quieter tone. Felicity's head snapped up to meet his. "And tonight I will make Sara into the same monster I am! I will let her be fuelled by hate until she can't stand it."

The elevator beeped as it reached the floor.

"Do not ever say her name," Slade said again, pulling on his mask.

No one came out of the elevator. Slade braced and took a step forward. A few seconds later an explosion knocked the chair out from under Felicity and she fell to the ground, tangled in it, smacking her head against the floor.

* * *

"Come on, come on," Sara pulled at the restraints on Felicity's chair. The girl was motionless on the floor. "Come on, Felicity," she begged, checking her pulse and rubbing her cheek. The smoke made it difficult for her to see anything in the room. Blood pooled near the gash in her head. "Be okay. Wake up," she begged, finding a heartbeat. "Okay, there we go," she nodded, patting Felicity's cheek quickly, sorry for how horrible and broken she'd become. Gently she shook her, trying to wake her.

"Did you get her, Sara?" Oliver buzzed in her ear.

"She's coming to," Sara spoke. "How are we, Dig?"

"Building is cleared above and below. I have you four marked and at least seven other heat signatures between the two floors," he reported. "But I'm losing them in the fire."

"Cover us as best you can," Oliver told him while Felicity started to cough and shake her head weakly.

"Hey, Felicity, we have to hurry," Sara rushed her consciousness. Flames licked at the walls, reaching the ceiling. The building moaned and creaked as it filled with more and more smoke and flames.

"Sara?" Felicity asked groggily. A sloppy smile parted her lips. With one eye she squinted and tried to find Sara in the bustle. A gunshot rang out and a body collapsed behind them. Sara reached for her staff and turned protectively.

"Good shot, Dig," Sara looked at the body of a guard. "Remember, the head," she instructed, finishing it herself with her own gun.

"We have to move," Olive insisted in her ear.

"Nyssa, do you have Laurel?" Sara asked, pulling at Felicity to get her standing as best she could. Felicity was hobbled and desperately in need of a doctor.

"She's safe," the voice returned in her ear. "Heading back to finish clean-up and demolition."

"Thank you," Sara lifted Felicity like a child.

"So strong," the girl lulled her head in her arms. "What? how?" Felicity faded in and out.

"Ran into trouble in the office," Oliver said quickly in her ear. More shots rang out from Dig's sniper in the building across from them. "Easy there, Dig," Oliver chided. "We're almost ready to make a break -"

A heavy blow sent Sara and Felicity flying forward. Her communicator dislodged and lost, Sara struggled just to find Felicity in the smoke. Again she was sprawled and unconscious. A creak and sigh of the floor above indicated just how direly they needed to leave.

"Always with the explosions, Sara," Slade appeared, suit half-burned on a leg and arm. Quickly she righted herself, situating herself between Slade and Felicity's body near the desk.

"Always with the dramatics, Slade," she returned with a cocksure grin. He chuckled and took off his mask, throwing it to the side. Flames raged behind him, feeding into the elevator shaft, crumpling papers and wallpaper and furniture. Sara's arm was nearly numb and detached. It hung beside her body while she stood, staring at him.

"This is it then?" he asked, sizing her, appraising her, seeing Felicity's crumpled body just behind her. Sara cracked her own shoulder back into place, not even noticing the pain.

"Suppose so," she said, moving her fingers again, testing them. "It's all over now." He laughed.

"I will haunt you forever," he said. "You know it. You feel it, don't you? I won before I even started." Sara ducked her head and looked at Felicity on the ground, broken and half-alive. She could have been dead, for all Sara knew. It made her angry.

"I'm going to kill you," Sara said, meeting his eye.

"More will take my place," he shrugged, bored of the talk. Sara shook her head this time.

"Your partners are dead. Your associates are being hunted by the League of Assassins." Another shot rang out. "The last of your Mirakuru is gone. I destroyed it after helping myself. And I know that once you're charred to bits, there will be none to salvage." Slade paid attention then.

"You wouldn't-"

"I would do anything to protect her," Sara braced herself. "That's the difference between you and me. I know the necessary monster I had to become. You allowed yourself to become weak."

"I would have done anything!" Slade shouted. "I wouldn't have sat idly by!" The smoke billowed between them, obscuring all else. They were both bristling like tom cats in an alley.

"It's over, Slade!" Sara shouted. "It's over! Shado is dead! You're out of Mirakuru. And you are not going to hurt anyone, anymore."

"Never," he snarled, pulling his pistol. Sara placed herself between Felicity and the bullet so quickly it surprised Slade. The bullet pierced her thigh, but Sara kept standing there. Another shot rang out from the building across the street.

"Once and for all," Sara said, leaping towards him.

The anger and instincts kicked in when his fist met her fact. She wiped at the blood with her forearm and was back at it like it was nothing. The smoke and swirling dust and debris didn't even bother her as they attacked each other in the burning building. Even when she landed a kick that sent him through the glass into Oliver's office and the smoke billowed out even thicker, feeding the flames of the floor below and above, Sara didn't let it bother her, willing herself to breathe.

They fought, exchanging ground, back and forth, though one never ousting the other. Instead it was a game of inches, stolen hits and kicks and cuts that were ineffectual at best. Sara grew more and more angry, the Mirakuru making her angry, making her ignore pain, feeding the consuming wrath inside of her that once fuelled and burned her alive. Slade threw her foreward onto the ground, boot on her throat. She managed to right herself again after sending him into the desk. It caught up with her then, the inability to breathe, the pain and the fear. But it was all secondary to the moment at hand. She followed, sparring with him, taking her beating, giving it back. He threw her into the wall, finally gaining an upper hand with is size.

"Just you and me at this reunion? It always was like the kid to shy away from tough situations." Slade stood just in her eyesight. She debated what to do. Felicity was still helplessly on the floor with the reality of death by fire becoming more and more likely, all over some silly man's ego and pain.

"It's over Slade," Oliver's voice boomed as an arrow flew into Slade's arm.

"The whole gang is back together," Slade picked the arrow out and threw it at the ground. Oliver sent another and another and another. Slade blocked one, took another, blocked another, took another. Oliver fired as quickly as he could until he tripped over a body. Slade was upon him, arrows sticking out of him in various spots. Sara made her move, sliding behind him and catapulting Slade back into the office area, and getting him off of Oliver.

"Took you long enough," she said, pulling Oliver up.

"Thea's clear. Where's Felicity?"

"Follow me," she felt her way into the lobby again. "Did we get the rest of them?"

"Dig hasn't found anymore heat signatures," Oliver returned. They stood back to back, slowly making their way towards Slade.

Wearily, he scrambled to right himself, struggling with the shards of glass and arrows in his body.

"We got them, Slade, it's over," Oliver said, standing, another arrow drawn.

"It's not," he stood, finally, yanking Felicity's body up with him.

"Slade, it's done," Sara said, barely able to restrain herself. "These arrows have been laced with a cure. The Mirakuru will start to deteriorate now. Your body is getting weaker. It's done."

"There is no cure!" he boomed, deep and menacing. Oliver let another arrow fly, right into Slade's arm. Slade reacted to it as he never had before, feeling it for the first time, pulling Felicity tighter to him as a shield. Her body was still unconscious.

"It didn't have to be like this," Oliver said, weak and afraid. "I didn't mean for any of this to happen."

"But it did!" Slade continued between his gritted teeth. "And you are a murderer and a monster, just like me."

Sara was distracted by Felicity, watching the way Slade handled her.

"Put her down, Slade," she called.

"I won't," he shook his head. A beam of the roof crashed near the elevator. "We're all going down, and I'm going to make sure of it." Sara pulled her gun and aimed it at him. "You're not monster enough," he scolded her. "Not enough to risk her."

The roof collapsed as Sara sized up her shot and Slade and Felicity disappeared, falling through to the floor below. Sara threw the gun and sprinted forward to the hole, jumping without looking, unsure of where Oliver was in all of it. She searched frantically for Felicity.

"Sara, we have to go," Oliver grabbed her elbow suddenly. She yanked it away, leaning over and looking under the flaming bits of rubble.

"Felicity!" she shouted. "Felicity! Please!"

Thunder clapped outside. Windows shattered and burst into the street as the heat built up to temperatures that made them angry. Walls and beams started to fall and shift as the fire spread in all directions, fuelled by wind.

"Sara," Oliver tried again. She ignored him as she scanned.

A pile moved near the freshly blown windows on the floor. The silhouette of Slade's bulky physique emerged. Frantically, Sara looked for Felicity quicker and quicker until she found her sandwiched under a desk and a flaming section of roof. Shielded from the fire, Felicity was wedged under the desk and not moving.

"Slade! Enough!" Oliver was shouting behind her. Sara didn't pay attention to it.

With all of her being, she lifted the burning debris, pushing as much as she could while pulling Sara. She felt the flames licking at her arm. Screaming, she pushed and pulled at Felicity, trying to free her as best she could. The weight of the roof and beam dug into her shoulders and back as she squatted and lifted and tried to get just a few more inches of clearance.

"Come on, come on," Sara urged, pulling at the unconscious body.

It happened in slow motion that her foot slipped and the weight of the roof landed squarely on her. Her body pressed against Felicity's half-freed legs. Again, Sara started, pushing with her legs until she was sure that her entire skeleton was ready to buckle under her muscles. The flames came quicker, catcher her arm and side while she pushed and pulled at Felicity. She scrambled and kicked and slid as best she could.

"Please, Please," she begged, once they were finally free and she scrambled to put out her body that was burning and check on Felicity. By situating herself between Felicity and the debris, Sara didn't see many burns, and when she held her breath she was able to find a heartbeat still in Felicity's chest amidst the crashing and crumbling of the building around her. She ripped at Felicity's dress and held it over the unconscious girls mouth softly, hoping to limit the smoke creeping into her lungs.

"Oliver!" she shouted, coughing up smoke herself. "Oliver! Where are you!?"

Sara made her way towards the window where the smoke was less. He appeared a second later, laced his bow and hit the building closest to them.

"Can you make it?" he asked, handing her the rope and grip as he strung another. Another explosion from the belly of the building didn't give her a chance to think about it for long.

Hugging Felicity's body to her, Sara flung herself from the building. To the best of her ability, she cradled Felicity and curled into a ball. The feeling of a window break on her back and being flung into the office building was surprisingly more brutal than she had expected. Sara could barely move. She coughed and struggled and sliced herself in the sea of glass shards. Parts of Queen consolidated shifted and crashed just outside.

The flames that engulfed the office threw enough light into the building that she could make out Felicity's form when she turned her head. The steady, shallow movement of her chest assured her that she was alive still.

"Sara?!" she heard Oliver yelling.

"Here!" she tried. It came out as a hack and coughing fit. She felt as if she were going to pass out. Her arm reeked of burnt flesh. "Get help. Get here," she tried to move her arm to point. She trembled and felt sweat cooling and freezing her skin. It was suddenly so cold, being outside of the inferno.

"Shh, Sara," Oliver knelt beside her as the building behind him shifted and screeched again. "It's okay. She's breathing. It's done. It's all over."

"Did you get him?" she asked, blinking her eyes and testing her joints while she struggled to right herself somewhat.

"It's done," he promised, helping her.

"Give me it," she swallowed. "Give me the cure." She coughed again, spitting out dust and salt and smoke.

"Not until you're healed," he shook his head. "Dig, where is that ambulance?" he asked his communicator.

"They'll find it in my blood at the hospital," she tried. "Get it out of me. Felicity doesn't need to know. Get this out of me," she insisted, forceful and full of wrath.

"She won't care," Oliver assured her. Sara moved to sit up, feeling the ache in her bones. It would be excruciating when she took the injection that would tear the Mirakuru from her blood.

"Give me it," she said again, gripping his arm. She squeezed. He didn't budge. Quickly she snatched an arrow from behind him and stabbed her leg, shoving it into her thigh.

"Sara, no!" Oliver tried to stop her. She pushed him away.

"This was the plan. This was the deal," she insisted. "If it isn't out of me by the time the League shows up, they will kill me."

"It could have waited," Oliver shook his head, eyes wide.

"Now it's done," she grinned, flopping back to the ground with a content smile. She was ready for it.


End file.
